


Convergent boundaries

by Ygern



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 15:05:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17143997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ygern/pseuds/Ygern
Summary: James and Robbie have their domestic bliss disrupted in the cruelest way by an antagonist of yore and have to find a way of dealing with the consequences. Laura Hobson is the True Hero™ of the story.Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! This is a Christmas story in the same way as Die Hard is a Christmas movie. If it’s good enough for Bruce Willis, it’s good enough for me.Dedicated to all the shiny, happy, beautiful people on the Morseverse discord server.Slightly AU-ish, but only in as much as magic is real.





	1. Chapter 1

_Although it is by no means the first documented account in history of the Ministry intervening in and overruling a Time spell, the case of Henry VIII is the most famous if for no other reason than it demonstrates that even a ruler with near-absolute power had to bow to the Ministry’s decision. History documents that Henry’s desire to use a Time-reset spell when his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon was deemed a failure owing to it not producing a viable male heir; was overruled by the Ministry resulting in the king’s decade-long bloody spree through eligible and unfortunate women. Feminist writers have argued that by allowing the king to use Time Reset spells, the lives of several women might have been spared. More jaded revisionist historians point out that given the king’s limited ability to produce males heirs that lived to adulthood and his contemptible attitude to women in general we would currently be in the 509th year of his reign had the Ministry not put its foot down._

_From - Treatise on the Theory and Practise of Time Reset Magicks, and its Real World Effects._

Lewis took a moment to survey the room from the doorway. In his head he’d been calling this The Last Party. He hadn’t said that to Hathaway, but James knew what it was all about anyway: Lewis was going to withdraw from active casework in the new year. Outside of emergencies he felt he was finally done. Much as he enjoyed being in the thick of things, he found these days that he was less attracted to the action and the mayhem that could sometimes erupt without warning. He was happy to potter around with cold cases if Moody wanted, but the CS hadn’t been sure he had the funds for that at the moment. Didn’t matter. Lewis felt he had done enough post-retirement contracting and was now ready to become a properly retired man. 

“A man whose time is his own,” is how James had put it fondly while tying Robbie’s tie for him.

Lewis didn’t really mind how they put it. He was done with early-morning call-outs, and more importantly, done with hobnobbing with dignitaries and bigwigs as required by Moody’s social bridge-building soirées. He’d only agreed to come to tonight’s Christmas party to ensure that James, a man who had once tried to get out of his own wedding reception, attended. Maddox was transferring having aced her OSPREY, and rumour had it that Peterson was moving too. If nothing else they owed Lizzie a proper send-off as a valued member of their team and Hathaway’s DS these last few years. James gave Robbie his trademark little smile and touched the back of Lewis’s hand with his own before they descended into the melee of celebrating coppers.

Lewis caught sight of a sprig of mistletoe on some sort of a fishing line flying overhead. He looked around and noted with a sigh of annoyance that DS Hooper and a couple of hangers-on had rigged up the contraption and were casting it over the heads of revellers trying to initiate kisses between unsuspecting party-goers. James noticed Lewis’s gaze and within seconds had snared the rig in his fist.

“Hooper,” he raised his voice only slightly. “You’re not trying to put people in compromising positions to force them to kiss others unwillingly, are you? Only that would constitute assault and harassment in the workplace, and I’m sure that you wouldn’t want to be party to anything like that.”

“C’mon Inspector, just a bit of fun. It’s tradition.”

____

“It’s a Celtic fertility symbol of semen that morphed over time into the practise of blatant coercion of women to submit to unwanted advances from males at Christmas time. We definitely don’t go in for that sort of thing here, not unless we want to be filling out forms in HR on Monday morning regarding the creation of a hostile work environment.”

____

Lewis noticed that several of the younger women on staff were looking at Hathaway in gratitude. Hooper, on the other hand, was staring at him with disdain. He’d always had a particular dislike for James with his obvious erudition and perfectly enunciated tones. Hathaway for the most part ignored the mocking facial expressions and barely veiled insults, refusing to engage in the man’s pettiness. This evening though, Hathaway was making a point and handed the sprig end of the mistletoe back to Hooper.

____

“Bit of a prude, are we Inspector?” Hooper leered. He’d had clearly been drinking for some time and his eyes slid around and fixed on Lewis before he scoffed. “Of course, under the circumstances no-one would blame you.”

____

As gracefully as a panther Hathaway marched Hooper towards the entrance. “Go home, Hooper. You’re drunk. You either get out of here and go sober up; or you’ll be done for harassment of your co-workers. Before you say another word, you might want to give your cooperation some serious consideration.”

____

Hooper blinked, hesitated for a moment and then slunk out into the night.

____

Lizzie Maddox appeared at Lewis’s elbow. “You know, your husband is seriously hot when he lays down the law.”

____

Lewis chuckled. “Aye, that he is”.

____

From his earliest days on the Force, Hathaway had always been almost scarily impressive when he was in the mood for it; a combination of his height, rower’s raw power and severely cropped haircut. Now with his relative seniority and maturity he could appear a formidable man, although he was known for fairness and hard work around the Thames Valley CID. 

____

Lizzie grinned at Hathaway as he returned from his exertions, “Well done, sir!” 

____

“It’s James now please, Lizzie,” 

____

“James,” she agreed saluting him with her bottle of beer.

____

“I’ll get us some drinks,” said Lewis, and disappeared into the crowd.

____

“Where’s Tony?” James asked.

____

“No idea. Somewhere. Someone wanted to talk hydroelectric somethings and you know what my husband’s like once you given him an opening.”

____

“Fair enough. So, how are you feeling about the move?” James asked.

____

“Excited. Terrified.” she said.

____

“You’ll be fine,” James smiled.

____

“What about you? Ready for a new sergeant?”

____

James’s expression turned a little wry at that. “Not really,” he said, “not much of a people person.”

____

“Would you like me to write you a letter of recommendation to my replacement?” she asked.

____

Hathaway looked as if he were considering it.

____

“I might,” he said.

____

Lewis returned with two beers.

____

“You know, I used to hate you before Inspector Lewis joined us back in the day,” Lizzie continued with a mischievous grin.

____

Lewis guffawed and James rolled his eyes.

____

“Chalk it up to teething problems. You were my first sergeant and I wasn’t sure quite how to handle you.”

____

“You didn’t consider following my fine example?” said Lewis.

____

“Your example was using me as your designated driver so you could have a pint or three down the pub in the evening,” said James. “I had so much orange juice that first summer, I developed an intolerance to citrus fruit.”

____

Lewis grinned at him. “Think of the Vitamin C, man. Good for you.”

____

They were both smiling at the memories when Lizzie interrupted them with a sigh. “I don’t think I have ever seen anybody sappier than you two.”

____

“We are not sappy,” James rebutted.

____

“You really are, sir,” she said.

____

Lewis remembered, “Oh, we’d better go and wish Action Man good luck as well. 

____

Lizzie watched them track down Peterson, on his way to a new CS post in Milton Keynes. She never tired of poking the occasional subtle bit of fun at her two erstwhile DIs. A lot of what she knew about them had been filled in by Doctor Laura Hobson who confirmed that no, they actually behaved a little better on site these days, with less secretive whispering in corners and yes, they had always had a curious habit of sitting up against each other when they had to share a bench. 

____

Robbie knew from experience that James would be itching to get away from the party as soon as was politely possible, so once Moody had been allowed to introduce ‘This is DI Hathaway-and-his-husband-DI Lewis, we believe in foregrounding diversity here’ to some visiting dignitary and Lizzie had been hugged by them both and promised to keep them apprised of her future adventures; Robbie dropped a quiet word in James’s ear and was rewarded with a smile and a nod. The few at the party still sober enough to notice anything would have seen seen the two head out, walking shoulder to shoulder as they always had done.

____

“I’m knackered,” said James over steaming mugs of tea on the sofa when they got home.

____

“Bed then?” said Robbie.

____

James laid his head against the back of the headrest. “In a bit. Too lazy to move.”

____

His husband huffed in agreement.

____

James smiled and took his hand, and they sat there like that for a while.

____

“How are you feeling after tonight?” asked James.

____

Lewis paused thoughtfully. “Like a lion who’s found the door of his cage open and can smell the savannah on the horizon.”

____

James chuckled and leaned over to kiss Robbie on his forehead.

____

“Come along Mufasa, it’s time for bed.”

____

They showered together to save time. James massaged shampoo through Robbie’s hair and they leaned into each other as the hot water beat down on them. Not for the first time Robbie found himself noting that in contrast to his previous relationships, he had ended up in one where he was the object of pampering and care from an adoring partner: the worshipped instead of the worshipper. A kiss on his cheek and an amused voice interrupted him.

____

“Impressive. I didn’t know that people could actually fall asleep standing up.”

____

“Very funny. I’m just relaxed, is all.”

____

Lewis allowed himself to be bundled into towels and then led off to bed. James snuggled into his side as soon as Robbie had made himself comfortable. Robbie picked up his husband’s hand and pressed the fingers to his lips.

____

“Love you, lad.”

____

James hummed sleepily in agreement and nuzzled into his neck. Lewis could feel James’s lips curve into a smile against his skin.

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two lines of dialogue from Frasier were given to James in this story. Apparently Niles Crane snark works just as well coming from Hathaway’s mouth. Everything works well coming from Hathaway's mouth. No, you shut up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Spellcasters use a locus and a focus for their spells. The focus, or focal point is the intended target of the spell. The locus should be understood to be an area effect of the spell, the targets intended to be brought with the spell. They are not direct targets, but are able to witness the spell’s effects to its fullest extent._
> 
> _From - Treatise on the Theory and Practise of Time Reset Magicks, and its Real World Effects._

Lewis woke to the sound of something that he couldn’t immediately place, and by the time he had fully gained consciousness whatever it was had vanished. He was alone in the bed and he wondered briefly where James had gone this early, on a day when neither of them had to be anywhere. A door slammed and he distinctly heard his daughter Lyn yelling at her sibling with all the contempt and annoyance that brothers and sisters have for each other: “I’m leaving without you if you’re not ready in 20 minutes, Mark!”

Lyn was here? Mark? Lewis struggled upright in his bed rubbing his eyes sleepily. He froze as the room came into focus and revealed surroundings that were simultaneously familiar and strange at the same time. Lewis got his feet on the floor and made his way uncertainly to the source of all the noise in the kitchen. Val was pouring a cup of tea into a mug and frowning at her daughter.

“Honestly, Lyn. Some charity towards your brother wouldn’t go amiss. You may be a grown-up university lass these days, but he’s still a boy.”

“Mum, he’s legally an adult! He’s not that much of a boy,” Lyn was arguing.

Robbie stared at the spectacle of his wife and daughter bickering over breakfast and felt his legs give way beneath him as he grasped for Val’s hand.

“Robbie, what’s wrong with you?” Val asked as he sank down onto the nearest chair. She put a mug of tea down next to him and pushed the sugar bowl towards him.

Lewis hadn’t taken sugar in his tea for the better part of a decade and grimaced visibly.

“I didn’t think you were that bad from the party last night,” said Val pushing his hair back off his forehead, “you got in fairly early.”

“I wasn’t,” said Lewis. “What day is it today?”

“It’s Friday. Just how much did you have to drink last night, Robbie?” his wife enquired.

Robbie stared at her. He and James had long had a pact to make sure the other did not overdo it at functions, no matter how boring the speeches or insufferable the pontificating from colleagues. All it took these days was a lifted eyebrow or a quirk of a smile, and in extreme cases, the physical exchange of a glass of something sparkling with a touch of ‘spurious glamour’ for the serving of alcohol.

“I had two pints and a glass of punch which may have been a mistake for reasons of dodgy fruit, but otherwise, no, I did not have too much to drink,” Robbie replied.

Except.

How could there be a James? He was sitting in his kitchen, in the house he and Val had bought back in the Eighties when he had decided to stay on with Thames Valley CID. It was a place he hadn’t seen in years.

“What year is it?” he heard himself say.

Val gave him a look that conveyed confusion as well as suspicion. 

“Only two pints, eh?”

She plopped the newspaper down in front of him. The header read 20 December 2002. Lewis sagged with disbelief. Apart from the nearly two decades disparity, Val should have been dead ten days already. Yet, here she was, same as she’d always been: warm, reassuring and making sure her family had something nourishing in them before they headed out to their various daytime destinations.

Instantly Lewis found himself stiffening in horror. He was sitting some sixteen years in his past. No, not his past. This was a past that never happened. He’d heard of this. It was supposed to be the highest order of illegal: changing the past was the most forbidden magic.

“I’ve got to...” he was interrupted as Mark shuffled in grumpily pulling his jumper over his head. 

Lyn lobbed his packed lunch at Mark and dragged him to the door with an exasperated “At last”. Lewis stared at his children, suddenly so young again. He’d last seen them together when both of them had spent Christmas in Oxford a few months after he and James had bought a place together and finally gotten legal, as Laura had put it; all of them so much older and life-worn.

“Oy!” he said, “Doesn’t your old dad get a goodbye kiss?”

His children looked at him in barely veiled disapproval, the sort of comfortable contempt that exists between a family still young enough to assume that things will always be the same. Lewis wanted to burst out laughing, but his eyes threatened to fill up. Lyn took pity on him and huffily pranced back to the kitchen table to kiss her father on the forehead.

“Love you, dad,” she whispered as she swept out again.

Mark stared stunned for a second before he too bent over and hugged his father awkwardly as befitted a teenager before he too grunted and headed out the kitchen door.

“Drive safe,” Lewis yelled at his children’s disappearing backs.

Val chuckled in amused surprise at the scene that had just unfolded. “Okay, that’s a first,” she said.

Lewis shrugged. “They grow up so fast.”

“Want some breakfast, love?” said Val.

“No thanks, pet,” Lewis answered. “I’ve got to get in.” He started in surprise when he realised how easily the term of endearment had just tripped off his tongue.

“But I thought you were off this morning,” said Val.

“Er, something’s come up,” said Lewis.

“There’s a surprise,” said Val.

He stood up and took her hand in his. “Did you get everything you wanted in London the other day?” he asked casually.

“I think so. Well, sort of,” she said. “Jane and I shopped until we were too tired to go any further. It’s not everything for Christmas, but it’s a start.”

“A start,” Robbie repeated stupefied. “Anything happen while you were there?”

“What do you mean?” Val looked bewildered at this line of questioning from her normally amenable husband. “We went shopping. That’s what happened. We had coffee at Pret A Manger in the morning, then we stopped for lunch at midday at the flea market in Camden and had more coffee at Starbucks and then we got the train back. Happy?”

“Happy,” said Lewis, backing away with his hands up.

“Oh, and some idiot nearly ran me and Jane down. But he missed and crashed into a pylon instead.”

Lewis could feel the blood leave his face. He grabbed Val’s hands and said, “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“I already did,” Val was beginning to sound annoyed. “There’s nothing to tell. Someone crashed his car in front of me and Jane. That’s it.”

Lewis realised he was probably behaving strangely and decided to let it go for now.

“Okay, lass. I just – you could have been hurt, is all.”

“I’m fine, Robbie,” she said. “Nothing happened. Go and get ready for work”.

He stared at her for a minute, trying to burn this old-new image of her into his brain after all these years of having only photographs to remember her by. He kissed her and then pulled her into a hug. He hadn’t felt her body next to his in years and it felt simultaneously alien and familiar.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Resetting time is an alluring concept, there is no-one alive who hasn’t once wished that they could replay an event in their life. Most of these wishes are benign. Some are less so, filled with envy and avarice. The worst are those who decide that reality should bend the knee to their own desires._
> 
>  
> 
> _From - Treatise on the Theory and Practise of Time Reset Magicks, and its Real World Effects._

Lewis drew up in the car-park of Thames Valley CID in an old battered car that he had forgotten he’d ever owned. Now that he considered it, the sleek Vauxhalls and BMWs he was more accustomed to driving in recent years were a vast improvement on the rattle-traps he’d once had to make do with. On the plus side, he was back in the relatively younger body of himself at 51: middle-aged rather than old, he had more hair, fewer wrinkles and stronger natural muscle tone in his stomach. On the down side, well. Best not to go there. He marched to CS Strange’s office and demanded an appointment.

“Lewis,” Strange looked at him curiously over his spectacles, “what’s all this about?”

Lewis breathed deeply and tried to collect himself. “I’d like to report, that is I think... there’s been an illegal Time Reset spell used in Oxford, sir.”

“What?” Strange sounded alarmed. “Are you sure, man?”

“Yes, sir,” said Lewis.

Strange respected Lewis as a reliable and responsible copper, not given to flights of fancy or self-promotion; so he gave his DI all his attention.

“If true, this is most serious,” he remarked.

“Yes sir,” said Lewis.

“It has to be centred on you if you’re the person aware of it,” said Strange.

“Yes sir. Only it doesn’t make sense. I didn’t do this. I wouldn’t.”

“Of course not, Inspector. I’m not accusing you of anything. But it must have something to do with you. I think you’re going to have to make a full statement to the Ministry of Time as soon as I can get them here.”

Apparently the Ministry of Time could be relied on to turn up quickly once the wheels were set in motion, and within a couple of hours Lewis found himself in an airless interview room repeating his story to a Mr Smith again and again as new people arrived wanting new angles on facts he’d already repeated multiple times. The facts as they stood were meagre: Lewis had apparently jumped back in time by sixteen years with no warning preceding the leap. The focal point of the Time reset appeared to be Valerie Lewis, who once had died early in December 2002, but now was healthy and unharmed. Any other changes as far as Lewis might be aware of them were all emergent from this change. The consensus seemed to be that Lewis was not being held as a suspect but only because he had been the one to report it within hours of becoming aware of it. There seemed to be an agreement that it was unlikely that a policeman would try to cast a spell from some sixteen years into the future only to report it within hours of the reset occurring successfully; especially as the reset involved his wife being returned to him.

“I suppose the question is, Lewis, who else would want your wife alive?”

Lewis pondered this. “Me kids, I suppose. But after sixteen years? We’d all mourned her, and moved on. They’d grown up, gotten married. I have grandkids.” 

The only other person who could still know of Valerie Lewis and her premature death was James. Instantly a face flashed into Robbie’s head: aquiline features on a charmless man who had responded to his arrest by James for his part in her death with disaffection and self-pity. 

“There’s another person. Simon Monkford. He’s been in jail, James - that’s me old sergeant - nicked him. I mean, in my timeline he’s been in jail for years on a number of convictions including for Val. He’s the only other person I can think of who would have a reason to reverse that day.”

Lewis could feel acid rising in his throat. The idea that Val and his family could be linked over time to that man was nauseating. He started to retch and barely made it to the bathroom before he vomited the meager contents of his stomach into the bleach-stinking toilet bowl.

When he returned to the room shakily, wiping his mouth with disgust and grimacing at the taste it seemed the Ministry of Time had come to a decision. 

“We’ll start a search for this man. It’s curious though that he used you as a locus for the spell though. He wanted you to know what he’d done,” said Smith.

“Does that make a difference?” said Lewis.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” said Strange. “The records we have of Time-reset spells being cast are nearly always aimed at the person wanting the change. You’d be a rarity in that respect.”

“Not entirely a rarity,” said Smith. “It’s common enough in Time Assassination spells too. Equally illegal, obviously.”

“Yeah, lovely,” said Lewis. “What happens now?”

“We track down this Monkford and bring him in. In the meantime, others will be searching the timeline to see what other changes have occurred as a result. These things are not always obvious. Depending on the sort of changes we find, we may or may not recommend for this to be reversed.”

Smith looked at Lewis and narrowed his eyes.

“You said your children don’t appear to be aware of the reset, and your wife wouldn’t be expected to notice it under the circumstances. Is there anyone else who might be affected? Anyone you were close to when the spell took effect?”

“James!” he gasped.

“You’ll have to explain,” said Smith.

“He’s me husband.”

Strange choked and Lewis could see a row of eyes trained on him with renewed interest. 

“Well, it’s the future, innit? It surely can’t be that much of a leap for you that same-sex marriage is now legal. Will be legal in a few years, rather.”

“No, I suppose not. Well, that definitely rules you out as the point of origin for the spell – who’d ruin their own marriage? So where would this James be? Is he around here?”

“No,” Lewis said. “We don’t meet for another three years. Don’t get together for... never mind.”

“The point is, was he with you when Time reset?”

“Well obviously. He’s my husband.”

The row of eyes looked more interested than before.

“That complicates things,” Smith sighed.

“You’re telling me,” said Lewis. “I need to find James. Poor lad can’t have any idea what’s happening.”

“Will he know where to find you if he is aware of the change?”

“He’d work it out, he’s not a copper for nothing.”

“I have two married coppers in my police station?” asked Strange.

“Not exactly,” said Robbie smiling slightly. “He’s not a copper yet. He’s probably still at university. Or at the seminary? No, definitely still the university.”

“Still at university? Just how young is he, this university lad who decides to become a priest and then a cop?”

“Hmm,” Robbie hummed lightly while he tried to do some calculations in his head. “Twenty-four? I think.”

“Good god, man! He’s half your age!” Strange sounded scandalised.

“Well, he is now,” said Robbie irritably. “Won’t be in 2018 when I finally decide to retire from police work.”

“Okay, you’re going to need to contact this James. Surname?”

“Hathaway,” said Lewis.

“Right. Find this James Hathaway. See if he remembers the other timeline. If he doesn’t, you’ll leave him alone and let time unfold by itself with no interference from you. If he does remember, you’ll have to bring him in. We can’t have two of you running around with knowledge of the future that you shouldn’t have.”

“He may already be trying to contact you,” said Strange.

“Or he might not. If he thinks Val is alive, he wouldn’t,” said Lewis. “He’s the most self-sacrificing fool out there. If he thought she was alive again, he would stay away so as not to intrude on my marriage. That’s the sort of person he is.”

“An honourable man,” said Strange.

“Aye, the best there is,” said Robbie sadly. “Oh God, what am I going to do? I’m married to two good people. They don’t deserve this mess.”

“I don’t claim to have the answers, matey,” said Strange, “but you don't deserve this mess either. Never forget that.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It is of course impossible to gauge with one hundred percent accuracy how many Time Reset spells have been cast. The Ministry has worked with zeal and relentless dedication to undo all such spells. However, it has to be accepted as fact that the ones that have remained unresolved and non-reversed are probably unknown. The Ministry is doubtless aware of them, but they are unlikely to make them public knowledge._
> 
> _From - Treatise on the Theory and Practise of Time Reset Magicks, and its Real World Effects._

Robbie was given a top of the range Audi to take himself to Cambridge. Mr Smith had made some calls and had returned to Robbie with information about one James Hathaway, currently registered at King’s College to read Theology and with rooms at Bodley's Court. Robbie drove just over the speed limit and entered the outskirts of Cambridge an hour and a half later.

He found himself running towards Bodley’s Court and leapt up the steps two at a time until he reached the hallway where James’s rooms should be. He rapped on the door but there was no answer.

He rapped again. “James?”

There was a sound inside the room and the door was thrown open. James stood inside, eyes wide with anticipation.

“Robbie?”

“Oh thank God, you know who I am,” said Robbie hoarsely.

He opened his arms and James flung himself into them.

“God, Robbie, I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to see you again. That was a Time Reset spell, wasn’t it?”

Robbie pushed them over the threshold and slammed the door shut behind them. James buried his face in his neck and then took Robbie’s face in his hands and kissed him again and again, tempo slowing as the kisses became more heated and clothes were discarded.

“Look at you, lad, so young and beautiful,” Robbie murmured as stroked James’s white-blonde hair, shorn close to his skull again the way it had been when they’d first met. Robbie ran his index finger lightly over James’s mouth and then over the slight subtle dimple in his chin.

“Perfect.”

James’s lips had fallen open in mute anticipation and Robbie took the opportunity to kiss him slowly and hungrily until James groaned and panted into his mouth.

“Sweet lad. There are days I don’t know how I get to be the one who does this with you.”

James’s eyelids fluttered for a second then he said, “I believe it all started when you said ‘Are you for me?’”

“And then you told me to get into another taxi because you had more important things to do.”

“I did no such thing. You intrigued me.”

“Intrigued you, eh? That was good planning on my part.”

“Indeed,” James murmured, pushing Lewis down onto the bed behind him and climbing on top of him.

“It’s true though,” James continued through kisses to Robbie’s mouth and torso. “It took about twenty-four hours for me to start falling for you.”

“As long as that, huh?” said Robbie.

“And that, Detective Inspector, is definitely facetious.”

They broke down laughing at each other over that.

“I love you,” said James.

“My James.”

Then all talking ceased as they lost themselves in each others’ bodies and then finally drifted sated and exhausted into sleep.

In the small hours of the morning Robbie woke to find James had contorted his gangly form into the window seat and was the blowing smoke of his cigarette out through a gap at the top of the sash window.

“James, what are you doing up at this hour of the night? Can’t you sleep?”

“I thought I’d lost you,” said James after a second’s hesitation.

“What made you think that?” Robbie forced himself upright in the bed and stared over at James’s pale torso gleaming in the faint moonlight.

There was no reply for a few moments, and then James said guiltily, “When I realised what year it was I looked up your old house number in the phonebook and rang your home.”

“Ah,” said Robbie.

“Lyn answered, and I could hear her talking to -”

“To Val.”

“Yes. That’s why I didn’t come to Oxford. I thought you would be with her and I didn’t want to make things complicated.”

Robbie clambered out of the bed and came over to James and took the cigarette out of his fingers and took a drag on it himself. James stared at him. 

“Since when do you smoke?”

“Not for years. Gave up a long time ago. Don’t intend to start again either. But under the circumstances.”

“Yeah,” said James.

“Lad, I’m still married to you. This doesn’t change us.”

James took another drag, exhaled and handed the cigarette back to Robbie. Robbie pulled James’s head against his chest and they stayed together at the window ledge, trading the cigarette back and forth.

“I’ve notified the authorities. The Ministry’s already looking into the case and as soon as they find Monkford they’ll reverse the spell,” said Robbie.

“Monkford? They think he’s behind this?”

“Doesn’t seem like there are any other viable candidates. None that I can think of.”

James pondered this in silence. Lewis could tell that there were unspoken thoughts and questions mulling about in his head. James heaved a heavy sigh and then stood and looked Robbie in the eyes.

“What about Val?” he said. “You love her Robbie, you always have. It’s part of what made me love you in the first place.”

“Aye, I still do. Of course I do. But none of this feels real. I mean, it was amazing to see her yesterday, hear her voice. But it’s just a dream. This is going to be fixed in a few hours. Days at most.”

“Shouldn’t you spend time with her then? For your own sake. You’d always regret it if you didn’t.”

Robbie shifted uncomfortably. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been half afraid to even think about it. I don’t know how to deal with this situation. I don’t know how to be with a wife who’s been dead for sixteen years. I don’t know if I can handle losing her again. And I don’t know what to say to her that won’t be weird: hi Val, I put flowers on your grave every year on our anniversary. Hi Val, my husband is a kind man who always remembers your birthday and drives me to the cemetery and stands respectfully at a distance while I talk to you.”

James drew Robbie into a hug.

“If it’s all going to be over in a few days, why not spend some time with her? You didn’t get the chance first time around. You don’t have to tell her anything about the future. Just talk to her the way you used to.”

“And you’d be okay with that?”

“Of course I would, Robbie,” said James.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Anyone found using a Time Reset spell is invariably imprisoned under special provisions for the rest of their life. They cannot be trusted to not attempt to repeat the attempt for obvious reasons._
> 
> _From - Treatise on the Theory and Practise of Time Reset Magicks, and its Real World Effects._

Twenty-four hours later Smith took a brief meeting with Strange. The Chief Super had been working his way to a quiet retirement for some months, and now it seemed that neither one of those options was open to him so he was testy and impatient to get this seen through to its end as soon as possible.

“Well, that answers that question,” said Smith.

“What question?” said Strange.

“Inspector Lewis, by my calculations, spent about forty minutes at his original marital home after he became aware of the reset. He set off for Cambridge after this James Hathaway as soon as we let him and reportedly neither he nor this Hathaway has emerged since except for takeaway and beer in the last day.”

Strange shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Yes. I let Valerie Lewis know that her husband was on a stakeout. Damned awkward.”

“I hate cases like this,” said Smith.

“With men?” said Strange feeling uncomfortable.

“What? No. Nothing to do with that. I mean where there’s a dead spouse returned to life. It never ends well. When the timeline is fixed the surviving spouse is bereaved all over again. Where there’s a new spouse in the picture there’s additional guilt that they’ve somehow abandoned the original partner. Some even feel as if they’re to blame.”

Strange shuddered. “I take your point.”

“That’s why he’s dragging his heels in Cambridge. Denial. While he’s there Lewis can pretend that all of this is just a bad dream and that his life hasn’t been up-ended. When he gets back here he has to face the fact that he has two lives, two spouses and none of it is compatible.”

“What’s going to happen when he gets back here?” said Strange.

“He’ll go back to his wife.”

“You seem very certain.”

“Doesn’t matter which way you come at it, it always works out the same. Take the maths approach: he stays with his husband and he ruins the lives of his wife and kids, plus he and his partner have to live with the guilt of his choice. He stays with his wife and only two people get hurt. Biology approach: it’s everyone’s evolutionary imperative to have children. Lewis only gets that with his original life. It’s one thing this Hathaway cannot give him. Result: Lewis stays with his family. Or you can take the basic human decency approach: in this timeline Lewis is married to his wife, not to his husband. The husband has been described as decent and self-sacrificing. Result: Lewis goes back to his wife.”

“Poor bastard,” said Strange, “he said even his kids came to his second wedding. Gave him their blessing and everything.”

“They probably did. But it’s one thing to want your father to be happy again after he’s mourned his wife for a decent length of time, it’s quite another to find out your father is married to someone else in the here and now. It would feel like a betrayal – which is why in most cases we try to prevent the family from ever finding anything out about the future timeline. In this case, being a policeman helps a bit. We can keep him out of their way and work on the case for a bit without raising suspicion, at least for a while.”

“Are there a lot of cases like this?”

“Actually no,” said Smith. “People wanting to resurrect dead spouses, yes. But a spouse being resurrected without the surviving partner’s participation is a lot rarer. Where the original partner has a new spouse, and that spouse travels back in the Time Reset too; well, that’s almost unheard of. That’s why everyone’s taking notes.”

“And if we can’t sort this out quickly?” asked Strange.

“There are options. We could tell the wife. More likely scenario, Lewis just keeps his mouth shut.”

“Bit hard on the young chap, eh?” said Strange. He was surprised to find himself feeling sympathy for a young man he’d never met, this ex-trainee priest who’d somehow married the most predictably stolid and ordinary family-man Strange had ever met.

Smith shrugged. “There are reasons why these spells are so illegal. They do untold damage. There’s always someone that gets hurt.”

“And Lewis said that this Hathaway would likely volunteer to step aside.”

“In the end, do you really think Lewis is the sort of man to just walk away from his children and his wife?”

“No, I don’t,” said Strange. “Then again, a week ago I wouldn’t have thought Lewis was the sort of chap who would marry a man, so perhaps I don’t know as much as I thought I did.”

“I wouldn’t normally recommend this,” said Smith, “but seeing as they’re both policemen and in a position to help, give 'em something to do while they’re here. Put it around that Hathaway is here as some sort of sergeant on loan or something.”

Strange winced.

“I thought time-lines shouldn’t be messed with.”

“The time-line’s already messed with. But given that they already exist in an altered thread now, and especially as they both made the jump with their memories intact, technically everything they do alters it further.”

Strange’s eyes widened at the possibilities that enabled.

“Any case I put Lewis on now is one he’s probably already solved. Evidence still has to be gathered, of course, or the criminal walks. But cases could get resolved faster than ever.”

“Don’t get too carried away there, Strange. If this goes right, things will go back to normal and Lewis will be the same policeman you’ve always had. If things go wrong, the thread is changed and even Lewis can’t know for sure what else has changed along with him. But so long as they do everything by the book, it shouldn’t do any harm if none of this can be undone.”

 

The journey from Cambridge back to Oxford had turned quiet and Robbie could see that with every mile on the clock James was becoming more and more withdrawn. 

They’d spent the morning packing James’s scant belongings into backpacks and boxes. James had interrupted the process every so often by coming over to Robbie and kissing him or wrapping himself around Robbie’s back. He’d even nipped out to FitzBillies for Chelsea Buns because “it would be remiss of you to be here and not try one.” The sticky bitter-sweet of the buns had coated their tongues and lips as smiles of enjoyment had melted into heated, hard kisses up against the wall and the desk and the bed.

Now that they were on the road things however, had turned sullen as the English weather. Every side-eyed glimpse Robbie got of James’s face showed the expression Robbie dreaded the most. It was the same expression as on the day Lewis had left James lying in the hospital after Zoe had tried to kill him. He’d seen it again the day he’d talked to Hathaway about retiring. It was James at his most closed-off, when he was giving up hope.

As they reached the outskirts of Oxford, James’s eyes had turned to lead. Lewis abruptly pulled the car over and reached for his husband.

“James, love. Talk to me.”

James heaved a sigh and turned to face him. “I don’t want to go to Oxford. Can’t we just keep driving? We’ll find some place near the coast where where no-one else wants to be and we can plant vegetables and you can catch fish and I’ll read to you at night, and you’ll put your feet up by the fireside while I make you dinner.”

Lewis smiled and raised James’s hand to his lips. “Pet. I love you. I’m not leaving you.”

“You can’t make promises like that Robbie. What if something goes wrong? What if they can’t reverse the spell?” James’s voice was rising in anger and then abated as swiftly as it had come. “Sorry. I’m not angry at you. I just don’t know what to think about all of this. I always know what to do on a case. But what do we do now?”

“I can’t tell you what’s going to happen, James. But I’m never going to stop loving you. Promise.” said Robbie.

He could see emotion welling in James’s eyes. He blinked at furiously and swept away the traces with the back of his fists.

“Love you too, Robbie.”

They took off again into the evening traffic. Robbie held out his hand for James to take.

They arrived back at the station after sundown and Strange and Smith had already departed for the day, but the remaining two representatives of the Ministry’s employees who’d been picked for night duty shepherded them into an unoccupied room for the night where mattresses and blankets purloined from the cells below had been provided for them. Lewis sighed at the prospect of a night of discomfort, although he noted James seemed relieved at the reprieve. He was somewhat leery of spending the night on the floor, but James cobbled together a cocoon of mattresses and pillows and once Robbie had surrendered and crawled under the blankets with James wrapped around him, one arm across his chest and the other cradling his head, he drifted off as if he were in his own bed.

Robbie was peripherally aware the next morning that they were in an interview room and as such had almost certainly been the object of study by curious eyes in the adjacent Observation room. Lewis was mildly surprised to find that he did not care if his colleagues saw him in bed with James; he only cared about James’s privacy. He was grateful to see on leaving the room that one of the representatives had stationed themselves at the door to Observation to prevent curious onlookers. 

While Lewis and Hathaway were sitting awaiting their interview, Strange was inside his office trying not to pore too closely over the roll of photographs that had been added to the file that was accruing on the two outside his door.

Strange felt revulsion towards spying on two fellow policemen who appeared to be above board in every way; however he could not help a certain compulsive curiosity towards them. Strange had grown up in a world where men like Lewis and Hathaway kept their feelings a secret for fear of ridicule, rejection or worse. Every decade had brought new changes and new liberties with it, and he wasn’t the least surprised to hear that legal marriage was imminent. But he’d never seen two men so visibly open in their relationship, let alone from such a close perspective. The men currently outside his office door had done nothing more than sleep through the night, but their evident complete ease at being together made something clench in Strange’s belly. The folders in front of him contained a wad of photographs that had been snapped through the night on some kind of motion detector activator.

There was nothing of note to see. Two men lay somewhat huddled on the floor on mattresses and occasionally shifted in a vain attempt to find a more comfortable position. At 03.46AM DI Lewis had apparently uttered the following:

Lewis: Sodding hell. It would be more comfortable on rocks.

Hathaway: Hmm?

Lewis: Nothing. Go to sleep.

Hathaway: I was asleep.

Lewis: Sorry, lad. This is just -

Hathaway: I know. Here, this better?

There was nothing further in the transcript. The photographs showed that the two had reorganised themselves so that Lewis had all the pillows to give him extra support under his neck and back and Hathway lay beside him, his long, sinewy body twisted to fit the remainder of the narrow mattress. Strange could see that somewhere in the night they had joined hands in their sleep. As tame as all the information was, it made him feel like he was violating their privacy in the worst possible way.

“Is all this really necessary?” he said to Smith. “It looks like we’ve got two good coppers trapped in a bad situation they had no hand in making.”

“We always collect data on these events regardless of who the culprits may turn out to be. Just in case somebody lets something slip. I assure you that no-one will ever see this outside of the Ministry,” said Smith.

“You’re seriously even considering that they may be responsible for this?” said Strange.

“Doesn’t seem likely, no,” said Smith. “We’re just gathering data. Standard procedure. No worse than your interviewing any person of interest.”

Strange sighed.

“Call them in”.

Lewis and Hathaway came in together, unmistakably partners, each knowing exactly where the other was without looking.

“Right, Lewis and it’s Hathaway, I’m told?”

“Yes sir, DI James Hathaway,” said James.

“We’ve brought you here to assign you to some work while the search for Monksford continues. Seeing as you both know the man we’re looking for, I thought you may as well launch your own investigation alongside the Ministry’s. We’ll re-assign DS Ali McLennan for now,” and here Strange noticed a frown on Hathaway’s face at her name, “to DI Knox and Hathaway can serve as your sergeant, if that’s alright with you Mr Hathaway. Only I don’t think we’ve ever had a twenty-four year old DI on the force ever, it would look a bit odd.”

Hathaway nodded.

“I take it you’ve met McLennan before?”

“Yes sir,” said Hathaway.

Strange nodded, unable to keep himself from staring at the pale young man in front of him. Robert Lewis he knew, and if he was any judge Lewis appeared to be the same man he was last week with no obvious change to account for the apparent extra decade or two of life. Hathaway, on the other hand looked barely out of boyhood until he opened his mouth and spoke. Then one got the impression of age, solemnity and bookishness. It rather put him in mind of a young Morse, only with a more polished accent.

Both of the men in front of him looked somber and Strange surmised that the memories they were sharing about DS McLennan were not happy ones.

“Right, so you will try to locate Monksford and bring him in; and I’ll get you a few other minor cases to make weight while you’re at it. In the meantime, have you decided about living arrangements?” said Strange.

The two man looked at each other. Hathaway nodded and touched Lewis’s hand.

“Yes,” said Lewis. “I’ll go home to Val and the kids. James is going to need to find some temporary accommodation.”

“There’s a flat we keep for visiting officers he can have for a week or two. We’ll have to find something else if this case lasts longer than that.”

Strange noticed Hathaway blanch at that. Clearly for all his acceptance of Lewis being with his family, the man was very uncomfortable with the prospect of it going on for longer.

“Right, so unless there are any questions, you may as well get to it,” said Strange.

Both men rose and nodded to him and left the room. Smith shuffled his papers together and looked thoughtful but said nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It has to be noted that Times Reset spells are rooted in the most self-serving of emotions. Very often the caster cannot be said to be malevolent. They very often only seek to make right the wrongs of the past. However, they invariably unleash new tragedies, unforeseen and perhaps unintended. Nevertheless, whatever the motivation, it cannot be allowed to go unchecked._
> 
>  
> 
> _From - Treatise on the Theory and Practise of Time Reset Magicks, and its Real World Effects._

“We should try to find the sister first,” said James. “She’s more likely to be stable. We might even try the house I found them in, could be a family home.”

Lewis nodded, “Good idea.”

“Otherwise, we may have to bring in London on this. He was running with some sort of criminal gang there the first time round.”

“I’m just concerned he may have disappeared off to Canada, same as last time. Then it’s going to be like the proverbial needle.”

James exhaled slowly and they exchanged worried looks.

It had been twenty-four hours since they’d been newly installed in Thames Valley CID and things had been awkward. They received odd glances in the hallways from coppers curious about why this new young sergeant who didn’t even look old enough to be more than a constable had replaced Ali McLennan as Lewis’s bagman for no apparent reason. It was also hard to hide the shorthand they’d developed over years of working together. Banter still tended to spill out of them at inopportune moments:

Lewis: When was the last time you had an unexpressed thought?

Hathaway: I’m having one now, sir.

This inevitably elicited more curious glances, some of them hostile from colleagues who believed that DIs should not take any cheek from their sergeants. To make matters worse Lewis was generally visibily amused by Hathaway’s impertinence. 

The nights were even more difficult as Lewis headed home and James loped off to the lonely police apartment by himself where he would spend the next hours solitary and reading. James made no complaint, he would always give Lewis the same little smile of affection as they parted for the evening and Lewis would head off home, but his eyes were sad and Robbie found himself wishing that he had taken James up on the request to run away on the day they came back from Cambridge.

Val had noticed something was off with him as well, which Lewis had to admit to himself, was inevitable. She was a canny woman, always had been smarter than he. But he’d found it impossible to just pick up where they’d left off. He wasn’t even sure if he could remember that point in their lives. Val kept sending him questioning glances as he sat quietly on the sofa in front of the TV at night. 

Eventually she could take it no longer. “Right, Robert Lewis. You’ve been off for days. What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” Lewis said evasively.

“Exactly this. Ever since your Super sent you on that stakeout you’ve been - well, it’s been like there’s a stranger in the house.” She came to sit next to him on the sofa and took his hand. “What’s going on, love? Something’s got you worried and you’re all out of sorts because of it.”

“Ah. Sorry pet, I didn’t mean to worry you. I didn’t really want to tell you, but I suppose there’s no use in hiding it.”

Val looked at him expectantly.

“You ever heard about spells for changing time?”

“Only that they are illegal. Wait, is that what’s going on?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Robbie, is this spell affecting you? Us?”

Lewis put his arm around her.

“I’m sorry lass, But, the answer is yes. I’ve been thrown back sixteen years into the past, so all this is, well, it just takes some getting used to again, is all.”

“How did it happen?” she asked.

“I dunno. I went to bed one night and woke up here,” he said.

Val stared at him. “So you know how our Lyn and Mark grow up?”

“I do.”

“And?”

“I’m not supposed to give you details. But, bonnie lass, they both grow up to be happy, beautiful people. Both of them find someone who loves them. Lyn has a little boy and then a little girl.”

Val’s eyes misted over and she leaned her head against Robbie’s. 

“That’s all I could ever have wanted,” she said.

Lewis found himself beaming at her. If he could give her nothing else, he was glad to give her this.

“Not a word to them, mind. No-one needs their future written in stone for them.”

Val nodded.

“Of course.”

“I’m sorry, love, if I’ve been strange. It’s an adjustment, being back in my past.”

“That’s alright love. I understand now.” Val answered.

Lewis felt slightly worse after their talk. He was glad to have allayed Val’s concerns, but he still felt on edge about all that he was keeping from her. 

Christmas Eve arrived and Robbie noticed that in the evening James seemed to be hovering in the office as if he was reluctant to leave work. Robbie momentarily found himself wondering why the lad didn’t pack it in for the night. Just as he realised that James would be going home to an empty flat on his own; James seemed to come to a decision of his own and gave him a tiny flash of a smile and whispered, “Merry Christmas, sir,” and trudged off into the grey dusk leaving Lewis feeling as if he had missed something important. While his children squealed with happiness at the thoughtful presents chosen by Val around the Christmas tree, his stomach soured at the thought of James, no doubt curled up around a book and a packet of cigarettes by himself in a silent apartment with no decorations and no festive food pretending that he did not feel alone.

That night in bed, when Val pushed his hands against her breasts and kissed his mouth lingeringly, he satisfied her with his fingers and tongue, half horrified that he was doing this, half mortified that he could not get it up for the woman he had dearly loved all the days of their married life.

The day after Boxing Day, he felt even worse when James presented him with a custom-made joke t-shirt with the cover of a Wagner - Knappertsbusch album on the cover. He hadn’t thought to get James anything, assuming that everything they had now would be erased in days once the Time spell was reversed. James genuinely did not appear to mind, and only grinned when Robbie donned the t-shirt under his button-up. Robbie insisted on driving James to the flat that evening and followed his sergeant inside where he covered his face with kisses and then howled in pleasure when James sank to his knees in front of him and sucked him off with a look of absolute adoration on his face. Lewis felt slightly sick when he watched James lick him clean and tuck him back into his trousers without expecting anything in return. He vowed he would make it up to him when he could and hated himself when he kissed James goodbye at the door and watched the happiness in his boy’s eyes die as he left.


	7. Chapter 7

Watching James meet Laura for the first time was a revelation to Lewis. True enough, from James’s side it was not the first time; but seeing his smile of carefully controlled delight and Laura’s corresponding smile of confused pleasure and surprise when he offered her a steaming paper cup of her favourite coffee beverage on their second joint encounter brought home the realisation that to James, Laura had always been regarded as a beloved friend.

After that, James always had Laura’s beverage of choice whenever they arrived a crime scene. Laura’s initial surprise soon gave way to gratitude and enjoyment as cold, unforgiving early mornings were softened slightly by a steaming cappuccino lightly dusted with cinnamon served by the sweetly smiling Hathaway, often proffered with a bow and an admiring smile.

“What is it about your dishy young sergeant?” Laura murmured to Lewis one day. “He appears to the sweetest man in the universe.”

“He’s a sound bloke,” Lewis stammered, unsure of what else to say. “He genuinely admires you.”

“Euphemism admires me, or just admires me?”

“Why don’t you talk to him, man?” 

Laura scowled at the ‘man’, as unintentional as the misgendering was.

“Fine,” she said, and Robbie had to remind himself that this was not the Laura who had stood at James’s side as they had been married. This was the Laura who only barely knew him and whose only real connection to Lewis was that she had instinctively picked his side over Morse when inevitable squabbles over lexicons had broken out at the scene of crime. They had a friendly professional relationship, nothing more.

Lewis wasn’t in the least surprised, however, when James waved his mobile phone at him a day later and announced triumphantly, “Laura has invited me for a drink.”

Lewis grinned at him.

“Yes, she did ask me about the dishy Sergeant Hathaway the other day.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her to talk to you.”

James rolled his eyes. “Well, it beats sitting in that mausoleum of a flat by myself.”

Lewis felt guilty at that and he could see that James instantly regretted his words as well.

“Sorry,” said James. “I didn’t mean to sound like that. I’m just - well, I can’t wait for this to be over.”

Then he looked even more guilty.

“Stop that right now,” said Lewis. “You are not to blame for the situation we’re in, and you’re not to blame for wanting your life back.”

James’s shoulders drooped and when he left for his flat at the end of the day he touched Lewis sadly on the back before heading out.

It was a miserable January night, so Laura selected a table near the fire in the pub and was pleased to see that Hathaway was punctual and once he had located her in the room, his face lit up with that slight little smile that she was beginning to realise was a hallmark of Hathaway. He put a pint down in front of his seat and a glass of the white wine she favoured in front of her.

“Doctor,” he said as he folded his height into his chair.

“I think it’s Laura while we’re not working,” she said.

“Thank you, Laura,” he said, the smile on his face widening even more.

“Let me tell you what I think, and you can correct me where I’m wrong”.

Hathaway raised his glass at her.

“Rumour has it that you and Inspector Lewis are working on a Time spell case. People from the Ministry have been seen in and out of the station for the last couple of weeks. I’m guessing that this case closely involves you somehow because I’d never seen you before two weeks ago and, if you’ll forgive my age-related assumptions, you’re awfully young to have made sergeant already. Not impossible, but unusual.”

James nodded gravely but said nothing.

“Then there’s the relationship between you and Inspector Lewis, you act like you’ve known each other for years, you communicate without talking. Only close partners and married couples do that. So my second guess is that in the future you and Lewis have worked together for years.”

Another nod, and a slight flinch. Interesting.

“The third thing is your uncanny ability to know exactly how I like my coffee and what I want to drink in a pub even though I don’t recall ever telling you either. We know each other in the future, don’t we?”

At this James laughed silently and nodded again.

“I always said you were smarter than all of us put together. Should have been a detective.”

Laura grinned at that.

“So I got it right?”

“Yes, you got it right. In the future, you, me and Robbie are,” he hesitated here, “are good friends. Probably best friends.”

Ah, so it was Robbie, not Inspector Lewis. Not exactly a new bagman - Inspector relationship then.

“Exactly how many years from the future did you come?”

“Sixteen years. Robbie’s retired, well, mostly retired anyway. I’m a DI. And you, you knock our heads together whenever we do daft things and go with me to exhibitions and things that Robbie wants no part of.”

Laura grinned and thought about this new information.

“Something else: I notice that you have been the one offering tokens of friendship, but Lewis hasn’t. It wouldn’t be appropriate, perhaps, for a happily married DI to be buying the single female pathologist drinks, but you say that all three of us are close friends in the future. So, correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s Lewis’s wife, isn’t it? She’s missing in the future. She’s died, hasn’t she?”

Something flickered in James’s eyes, but he just nodded again.

“Yes, she died in the timeline I come from. It happened before I started working here. But he mourned her for years, in fact the day I met him he went to put flowers on her grave. But in between all that, we became friends.”

“Oh God,” Laura’s eyes widened at a thought, “did we, I mean Lewis and me, did we?”

James shook his head. There was that hesitation again.

“I mean, you tried, you dated a bit. But in the end you both decided you were better as friends.”

“Thank God for that,” said Laura laughing, “otherwise that would have made crime scenes awkward.”

“Anyway,” said James, “we’ve been having lunch together every week for a long time, and I’ve missed you.”

“Well, this isn’t the strangest start to a friendship I can imagine, but it’s certainly one I will treasure as my own,” she said with a grin. “Now, there’s an exhibition at the Ashmolean I’ve been meaning to go and see if you’re up for it later on in the week?”

His delighted smile told her what she wanted to know.

When they met up in a chilly field at dawn two days later and James handed her the now customary cup of coffee, she noticed Lewis smile broadly and warmly at both of them, but say nothing. Their future friendship was evidently real. She felt a pang of sympathy for Robbie Lewis. What must it be like to be back with his wife knowing that it could all be snatched away again at any time? She felt grateful that he could at least have this illicit borrowed time.

When Laura and James made it to the Ashmolean together a day later she was struck by a couple of things. The first was that James scrubbed up well. She was the target of many an envious look from men and women because of the elegant man at her side who was perfectly attentive and utterly oblivious of the unsubtle glances he was getting. After an hour she revised her opinion. He was aware of it and didn’t care. That in itself was interesting. What young man was uninterested in come-hither looks? It wasn’t as if James was interested in her, not like that: he was affectionate and courteous and their similar sense of humour had meant their banter had them both laughing constantly as they strolled along arm in arm through the exhibition. However, his interest was disappointingly chaste, as comfortable as he was with her.

The other thing was that she realised how much she enjoyed being with him. She could only imagine what their friendship would be like sixteen years into the future if they had clicked this well when they were relative strangers. It was an odd start to a friendship, and she felt sure that there were things James had not yet told her, but for now she felt fortunate to know this sweet young man whose smile brightened visibly every time he saw her.

The one thing that seemed odd to her was why Lewis and Hathaway appeared to lead separate lives after hours. If they were such good friends in the future, then it made no sense why Lewis apparently did not invite his sergeant over for Sunday lunch to meet his family. Perhaps it was an attempt to not alert Mrs Lewis to her fate, but Laura felt sure that James would never do something like that. It niggled, and Laura couldn’t quite fathom it out. She felt it would be rude to openly confront James with her questions, so she let it be for the moment and only occasionally pondered it when she watched the two men interacting at work, so perfectly in tune with each other. If James was Lewis’s best friend, or at least one of his best friends, it was oddly cold of the man to exclude him from everything outside of work.

James for his part said nothing about it, at times she thought she noticed he seemed down but he only shook his head and forced a grin whenever she asked him about it. When Laura mentioned she had joined a college orchestra, James said he had been in a jazz-slash-madrigal group and and spent an entire evening playing beautiful John Dowland compositions for her on his Gibson guitar. Laura was lulled into an almost trance-like state by his resonant baritone singing sadly about love lost. Again she found herself wondering about James, still so much a mystery to her. More than ever she was beginning to suspect that he had lost someone in this Time jump. Something made her hold back from demanding answers from James, she counted herself lucky to be the one who got to listen to him singing songs of love and wondered who the person was that he was thinking about about when his face saddened at the end. At the end of the evening before she slipped out the door, Laura kissed James on the cheek. She had no words for him, and could only offer him that small gesture of solidarity.


	8. Chapter 8

“And where have you been?” Lewis asked as James strolled into their office mid afternoon after disappearing at lunchtime with a mutter.

“I went to see Will.” 

“Who?” said Lewis before remembering. “Oh, Will!”

Hathaway nodded, looking more at ease with himself as he seated himself in front of his desk.

“It went okay I take it?” asked Lewis.

James nodded and flashed him a wide smile, something it occurred to Lewis he hadn’t seen in a while on James’s face.

“Good lad, I’m glad of that,” said Lewis and he noticed James failing to control the smile beaming all over his face.

“I told Laura a little bit about him last night and she asked in that typical Laura way of hers why I hadn’t gone to talk to him yet. I realised that she was right, and I was being a coward.”

“What did you say to him then?” asked Lewis.

“I just begged him and Feardorcha to leave The Garden. Luckily JonJo was there as well and he backed me up. I know in the long run it won’t mean anything, but we’re meeting up next week to talk some more, but I think they’re open to listening,” said James.

Lewis was about to clasp his shoulder when a DC popped her head in and said, “The Super wants a word with you both.”

Lewis’s stomach sank when he saw Smith sitting in the corner of Strange’s office again. Strange himself was looking particularly solemn. He shot a look at James and saw that he was looking equally worried.

“Lewis, Hathaway,” said Strange, “good, you’re here. I’m afraid there’s bad news.”

Smith rose from his corner and continued, “there’s been no sign of Monkford, beyond a report that he almost certainly left the country as you initially feared. Naturally we’ve passed this along to the international branches of the Ministry, but for now we have no way of knowing how long it will take to find this man, if indeed we ever do.”

“It’s damned annoying, I know,” said Strange, “but for now our hands are tied. We don’t even know what country to start looking in.”

“Which bring us to you two,” said Smith. “The bottom line is for now we’re putting this investigation on hold. If Monkford ever resurfaces we’ll re-open it, But for now, Lewis, you’ll go back to active duty. Hathaway, as you are not technically a policeman you can’t stay on here. We advise you to pick a subject and go back to university. The Ministry will make sure you get accepted to whatever you select. Get your degree and then you can apply for the fast-track program again.”

Both men looked stricken immediately, and Hathaway paled visibly and started to breathe raggedly. Instantly Lewis was on his feet and grabbed Hathaway’s hands in his own. 

“James, lad, breathe. Come on, in and out, look at me. Slowly now. You’re all right.”

Hathaway’s breathing evened out and he immediately looked for a way out of the room. Strange felt pity for them, this was monstrously unfair to them both.

“Lewis, take him back to his place. The Ministry will send someone tomorrow to sort out what comes next.”

Lewis put an arm around Hathaway’s shoulder and walked him out to the car.

James was silent for the entire journey to his flat. Tears kept seeping out of his eyes and Lewis felt his stomach knotting and nausea rising. This had always been a possible outcome, but not one either of them had dared consider. Now the worst had come to pass and neither of them knew what to do.

Lewis got him into the apartment and found a bottle of whiskey and poured them both a shot. He wanted to talk to James, but all words died on his tongue whenever he tried to form a sentence. James had crumpled into his side and had buried his face in Robbie’s neck. For a long time they sat like that, silent and grieving. Then James straightened up and said: 

“You should go home now.”

Lewis shook his head.

“I’m not leaving you like this.”

“There’s no point in dragging it out, Robbie,” James’s voice was eerily flat and toneless. “You have a home and a wife and a family, you belong with them.We can’t help that we’re going to suffer here. But it doesn’t have to be all three of us. Your wife can be spared that.”

“And what about us? You’re my family too,” said Robbie.

Tears started to slide down James’s face again.

“Think of it as a dream we once had. Just leave me, Robbie. Please don’t make it worse than it already is.”

“But I love you, James,” Robbie pleaded.

“I know.” James stood and pulled Robbie up with him, and stroked his face sadly. “I love you too, and I always will. But you belong in your home with your family. You got a second chance. If you doubt that, just remember the times you stood at Val’s grave. Go home, Robbie. And don’t look back.”

They stood for a while wrapped around each other. Then James whispered, “Go,” and Robbie kissed him on the forehead and then left swiftly without pausing or turning as he let himself out. When he got to his car he turned up the opera tape he had in the cassette deck as loud as he could bear it so that he did not have to hear his own thoughts.

The last file Strange saw in relation to the case during his professional life was supplied courtesy of Smith a few days later. It confirmed that James Hathaway was to read law at a university of his choice. It also noted that the man had clearly been hungover and exhibited some signs of being in shock while at the meeting with the Ministry representatives, but had refused any medical intervention or offers of counselling. There was nothing of note on Lewis, other than a recommendation that he be reassigned his original DS McLennan as before so that things could go back to the way they were. Strange felt complete pity for the young lad Hathaway. There had been no mistaking the devastation on his face as Lewis had taken him home. Strange’s subsequent encounters with Lewis saw similar grief on the normally good-natured Inspector’s face. It was a case that left Strange with a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, and when he finally retired he left a message for his successor to headline any Time spell cases and treat them as amongst the vilest crimes under the sun.

Laura paid one final visit to James at the flat before he moved to university. She’d heard nothing from Hathaway in days and then had run into Lewis with DS McLennan in tow at a crime scene.

“Where’s your usual other half?” she said cheerfully by way of greeting and got a stony glance in return from Lewis who then turned his back on her without a word and marched down to the river to talk to some SOCO personnel.

“You mean Hathaway?” said McLennan.

Laura nodded.

“Don’t know exactly. I heard he was leaving for university. The bossman never talks about him though, so,” she shrugged expressively.

Laura nodded her thanks and as soon as there was a break in her day she headed over to the flat.

She was greeted by an array of half-packed backpacks and boxes, a fairly meagre collection for a man in his twenties. The man himself was standing amongst them and looked broken and defeated.

“James,” she said going over to hug him. He stiffened in her embrace before clinging to her hug.

“I’m making you coffee,” she said, “and then you’re talking to me.”

He eyed her warily and his expression warned her that he had no intention of talking.

“James Hathaway, a few weeks ago you told me I was your best friend. If you think that I’m just going to pretend that there’s nothing profoundly wrong here, then you’ve got another think coming.”

She put a mug of coffee and a packet of Jammy Dodgers in front of him and said, “Eat, you need the sugar.”

James winced but obeyed, grimacing at the sugary biscuit as he bit into it.

“Now what’s going on James. Start at the beginning. Why aren’t you a policeman anymore?”

“Because I’m not a policeman, not in this timeline anyway, not yet. I’m still supposed to be studying theology at Cambridge. They can’t have someone like me on real cases.”

“Real cases?” said Laura.

“It’s the Time spell. They assumed it could be reversed.” At this his face shuttered itself.

“Ah, and now they assume it can’t.” Laura surmised.

He nodded slowly.

“Oh James, I’m so sorry,” she took his hand in sympathy and watched as tears welled up in his eyes.

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t show me sympathy. I can’t hold it together if you are nice to me.”

Laura was aghast at this revelation.

“James, sweetheart, you don’t have to hold it together. Not with me. You have every right to be upset about not being able to return to your life.”

At that he started to sob silently and she held him while he cried until her shoulder was damp. Eventually the crying was replaced by shivering and she pulled a blanket around his shoulders.

“I’m going to tell you what I think,” she said after she had settled him, exhausted and purple-eyed next to her on the couch. “I’ve always suspected there was more to your story, things you weren’t telling me. For one thing, it made no sense that you and Lewis, two best friends by your own account, couldn’t be friends any more just because Val Lewis was alive. The other thing I’ve been sure of for a while was that you lost somebody special to you because of the Time case, and it was someone more important than me.”

James shivered again next to her and she tucked her arm around him.

“I once asked you if Lewis and I had been an item in the future. Now I realise I had it the wrong way round. It was you with Lewis in the future, wasn’t it?”

He nodded.

“Oh James,” she said hugging him closer to herself. “Was it serious?”

“Yes, we were married,” he whispered huskily. “You were at our marriage ceremony. We danced, you and me, at the party afterwards because Robbie said he wasn’t quite ready for dancing in public, even though,” James chuckled slightly at the memory, “even though it was hardly in public and he’s actually very good at dancing. It was a good day. And,” James’s smile spread across his whole face, “he danced with me at our first wedding anniversary.”

James fell asleep in her arms and eventually she roused him and led him to his bed where she curled up next to him, so that he would not be alone if he woke.

In the morning she got him to load all his possessions into the boot of her car and took him home. 

“When you’re not at college, this place is your home from now on,” she said, “this is where you come on holidays.”

The love in James’s eyes as he hugged her in gratitude was all the thanks she could ever have wanted.


	9. Chapter 9

DS Daniels hit the ground running. He’d been trying to impress his DI for the entire four months he’d been his bagman, but he’d rarely achieved more than a grudging grunt from the taciturn man. Confusingly Lewis had been described by CS Innocent as a decent Inspector, but perhaps she said that about all the DIs. McLennan had said he was alright before she had transferred away with her new promotion, but there had been rumors of a sergeant before that who had only lasted a matter of weeks before he had disappeared, no doubt disheartened by the terse orders and abrupt manner of DI Lewis.

Daniels burst through the door only to receive a scowl from Lewis at the interruption.

“It’s Dispatch, sir. There’s been a shooting on the Cherwell. A student got shot by a professor and we’re to get out there.”

Lewis sighed and grabbed his jacket.

“Ah, there you are,” Innocent poked her head around the door.

“Ma’am,” said Lewis automatically.

“Apparently there are two witnesses, students by the sounds of it. Apparently student one prevented the professor from shooting student two and got shot in the process, and student three saw the whole thing. Go and sort it out, would you?” she said.

“Ma’am,” Lewis intoned again.

“And Lewis?”

He turned to her.

“Stop Ma’am-ing me instead of using actual sentences.”

“M - Yes, Ma’am.” 

Innocent shot him a look of annoyance as he headed down the corridor towards the stairwell. Lewis’s file had spoken of an exemplary policeman, both as a sergeant and DI. The Lewis she dealt with in her station was diligent but curiously lackluster for one who had once been described as a natural leader. Her predecessor Strange had left a note on Lewis’s file noting that five years previously he had been involved in a very frustrating Time Reset case that had never been resolved and which had resulted in the loss of a partner. Further details were classified and she was left to deduce that this was responsible for Lewis’s apparent slide from golden boy to indifferent if competent senior officer. Innocent was beginning to think that she would try to convince him to move into training and out of her station; it might be more suited to a man of his temperament. 

The banks of the Cherwell would have been idyllic and picturesque that afternoon were it not for the fact that uniform constables and SOCO units were grouped all over the field. Lewis headed to where the knot of activity seemed busiest, correctly judging that the witnesses were likely to be where where the action was. A young woman with long blonde tresses and flowers twisted into a chain around her neck was huddled in the interior of one of the ambulances, shivering under a silver foil rescue blanket. Her lips were blue and chattering and she was swinging her legs rhymically back and forth to calm herself. It wasn’t until Lewis saw her companion; a short, gentle-faced boy with brown hair and a twitchy demeanour standing in the shadows behind her that he recognised who she was.

“Girl’s in shock, sir, but I think you can talk to her,” said the paramedic.

“Nell Buckley!”

Her chin jerked up as he said her name.

“That’s me, officer.”

“And you’re Philip Horton,” Lewis said nodding to the young man. Philip squinted at him and then nodded jerkily and Lewis tried to smile kindly at him, remembering that the lad was different.

“Could you tell me what happened?”

Nell shuddered again and said, “He tried to kill me, and then the other man stopped him.”

“Who tried to kill you, Nell?,” said Lewis, although he had a fair idea who it was.

“Professor Stringer,” said Philip. “Nell said meet me here at 08.30 to paint, only I was ten minutes late; but she wasn’t alone, and Professor Stringer was angry with Nell and then the blonde man came and started shouting at the professor and said ‘You leave her alone, Stringer, don’t you dare touch her’ and the professor turned around and he was pointing a gun at Nell and the blonde man said, “Don’t do it, don’t do it, no gamble or money is worth a life,” and the professor shot him, but the blonde man tackled him to the ground at the same moment and the gun fell into the river before he collapsed. Then the professor ran away and Nell told me to call 999.”

Lewis stared for one second, as memory of Philip’s uncanny and somewhat unnerving ability to replay events frame by frame in one single flood of information came back to him.

“We’ve, um, put out a search for this Stringer fellow,” said one of the uniforms, “we’ve got his address, we’ll pick him up any time soon now. We’ve also got SOCO diving for the gun.” Lewis nodded.

“Who was the blonde man, Philip?” said Lewis

Philip shook his head.

“I don’t know, he’s never come down here before.” Then his expression brightened. “I can draw him if you like. But the ambulance took him away. He’s in critical condition from blood loss they said. But he saved Nell.”

“Yes,” said Lewis. “He saved Nell.”

“That makes him a good man,” said Philip.

“Yes, it does,” said Lewis.

Lewis left DS Daniels in charge of the scene and headed out to the hospital as fast as he could legally go. His badge got him inside the Emergency Room, but his frantic requests for James Hathaway got him nowhere until he spotted Laura Hobson sitting on a bench in one of the waiting areas.

Lewis hesitated for a microsecond before heading over to her, suddenly staggered by the realisation that he and Laura had never become friends here. Since James had left five years ago they had swapped only the barest civilities necessary for encountering each other at work. Laura’s face went stony at the sight of him, but she seemed to override an internal argument with herself and stood to face him.

“Lewis,” she said coolly.

“Doctor Hobson,” he replied. “It was James at the river, wasn’t it?”

She nodded looking drawn and tired. “He’s got a gunshot wound to the abdomen, possibly rupturing the liver, significant blood loss. They’re trying to stabilise him and remove the bullet, stop the bleeding.” Her breathe came and went in stuttering gasps and Lewis instinctively reached out to her and helped her to sit down. Laura regarded him fiercely from under her brow in a way that was very familiar to him before continuing.

“Look, Lewis, I don’t really know how to go about this. James has told me you and I were friends in the other timeline, your real one. But I don’t particularly feel like we’re friends in this one.”

Robbie exhaled shakily. “I suppose that’s a fair assessment.”

“I’m not blaming you for what happened to you, I know the Time spell trapped you both and there was nothing either of you could do about it. But all these years, Lewis, not once did you ever ask me how he was? Your husband?”

Lewis jolted. 

“I didn’t know you knew.”

“Oh Lewis,” she said sadly. “How could I not know? He was shattered when the Ministry ended the investigation and you had to go on without each other. There was no hiding that from me, he’s my friend.”

Robbie felt his eyes burning.

“I’m glad he had you then,” he whispered, “thank you Laura. I know you don’t think very much of me, but it means a lot that he had you.”

“I don’t hate you, Lewis,” she said with a sigh. “James never once had a bad word to say about you. It just hurt to see him shut down a part of himself down to compensate for losing you. Our James is not one for half-measures and compromises”.

She gave him a crooked smile. Lewis laughed humorlessly.

“No, he certainly isn’t,” he said. 

They sat in silence for a while, until Laura offered him a coffee and a sandwich in the canteen. They sat in the teeming room, hospital-green walls shining with a sickly sheen of water vapour and cooking oil.

“What has he been doing these last five years then?” he asked Laura.

He earned himself a bewildered frown from her.

“That’s your first question? Not what was he doing tackling a maniac with a gun?” she asked him in an accusing tone.

“Oh I know what he was doing there,” said Lewis with a disbelieving shake of his head. “At least I’m pretty sure I do.”

“Oh really,” said Laura, “well in that case, please enlighten me.”

“He was saving Nell Buckley.” 

Laura looked blankly at him.

“It’s kind of a long story. The two kids on the river bank, they’re art students. Young, best friends, and naive as the day is long. The lad, he’s a brilliant artist and autistic, I think. And her, well, her head is filled with grand schemes and concepts. Only, she got them into a situation that she thought was all about art but in fact was all about money and forgery. Nell Buckley would have died today. Stringer would have hit her over the back of her head and drowned her, and the boy would have had to face the rest of his life without the only friend he’d ever managed to make. I think that’s what James wanted to prevent, my awkward, caring sod.” Lewis trailed off.

“And of course, he knew all this because this was a case you two had worked before?” 

Lewis nodded.

“James was really good with Philip. Instinctively knew how to talk to him. It was as if the poor lad could only partially process that his best friend had gone forever.”

Laura had tears in her eyes. “Oh, James,” she whispered, “he would be moved by that.”

Lewis wanted to take her hand, but decided against it.

“So, to answer your question,” she said, “he’s been reading law. Said he had no interest in doing the same theology degree twice. He’s just finished up his MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice and has been considering a DPhil for next.”

“That’s my Clever Clogs,” Lewis found himself whispering with a small smile. “So, he’s been here in Oxford all along?”

Laura nodded. 

“He said if he was going to be stuck in this timeline, then he may as well fix things as best he could. Of course, I thought that meant reacquaint himself with his old friend Will, I didn’t realise that meant tackling gun-wielding academics.”

Lewis covered his face with his hands and shook his head.

“All these years, and he was only a few miles away.”

When they returned to their hallway vigil, they sank into a companionable silence, interrupted once by Innocent demanding an update and once by Val asking if he would be home for dinner. To both he said he was waiting for a witness at the hospital and would be there for a few more hours.

Laura was looking at him with that expression on her face again, the one he knew of old that told him she had questions that he probably didn’t want to answer.

“Has it been okay for you, Lewis, being back at home again?”

He flinched at the directness of her question, but also at the strangeness of hearing someone at last pose the question that most defined the last few years of his life, and yet the one that no-one knew to ask.

He shook his head helplessly.

“I hardly know how to answer that. Val’s me wife and me friend and at first it was fantastic to see her again. But it came with a price.”

“James.”

“Yes,” he said, “James. For sixteen years James had been first my best friend and then my husband. Losing him was a price I would never have willingly paid, but I didn’t get a choice.”

Laura took his hand in sympathy.

“I love my Val, and some days I almost manage to forget what I’ve lost to have her back. Other days, well…” he trailed off and Laura looked at him sadly.

“I’m sorry, Robbie. I may have misjudged you. I’ve never really thought of it from your perspective, only from James’s.”

“That’s okay, love,” he said unthinkingly. “You weren’t wrong. James paid a far higher price, poor lad.”

“Love?!” Laura exclaimed.

“Sorry,” said Lewis. “Force of habit. You were our best friend for a long time and all this talking to you made it come out automatic-like.”

“I know, James told me,” she said. “He also told me about our misguided foray into a romance of our own.” 

“Ah,” said Lewis sheepishly. “Yes, but you forgave me eventually.”

Laura grinned.

“And it’s Robbie.”

Laura extended her hand to him.

“Pleased to meet you, Robbie.”

Lewis refused to go home until James was out of surgery and the surgeon explained that it could be hours before he woke.

“Go home and get a shower,” said Laura. “I’ll stay until you return, and I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

But when Robbie got back James was still asleep, somehow looking younger and thinner than ever in the narrow hospital bed. Some hours later Laura announced she was going to stretch her legs and get a nap and when she returned she hesitated at the door unwilling to intrude. Lewis had pulled his chair right up to the bed and had taken one of James’s hands in his own. The other was stroking his blonde head.

“Lad, what did you go and have to do that for? All by yourself, no backup? You stupid sod, you could have been killed, and then what would I do? I don’t think I could bear that…” 

Here’s Lewis’s voice wavered and broke and Laura backed out of the room to give him some privacy.

Robbie had never felt so old or so helpless in his life watching James lie silent and still. He felt tears dripping down his face and he wiped his eyes on his sleeve to try to staunch the flow.

“Why are you crying, Robbie?” James was blinking at him blearily.

“Oh, pet,” was all he could say in return.

“You came,” said James.

“Course I did.”

James gave him one of his beautiful smiles of joy.

“Robbie. I’ve missed you so much.”

“Me too, lad.”

He kissed his boy on his forehead and then on his lips. James tasted stale after so many hours of unconsciousness; but also familiar, like home.

“I’m so sorry, James. I’m so sorry about how everything’s turned out,” he whispered.

“It’s not your fault Robbie, never was. Didn’t you tell me once not to be so hard on myself?”

“Oh, so you were listening after all.”

James chuckled silently and winced as his stitches pulled.

“I always listened to you,” he murmured weakly.

A shy cough interrupted them and a nurse came in to check James’s temperature and blood pressure and adjust his drip.

“You should really let him sleep now,” she said, “you look like you could do with some too, if you don’t mind my saying.”

James whimpered sightly.

“No, please, not yet.”

“It’s alright, James. I’ll stay until you fall asleep,” Robbie answered taking his seat next to him again.

“Wait, Nell,” James was struggling now against the sleep-inducing effect of his pain medication, “what happened, is she okay?”

“She’s fine, love. You saved her. They’re both fine.”

James nodded at that and reached for Robbie’s hand again before he drifted off into unconsciousness again.

Laura returned a short while later and found Robbie still bent over James, stroking his hair silently. Exhaustion had aged him in the space of a few hours and she put her hand on his shoulder in sympathy.

“What am I going to do now?” he asked her. “I don’t know if I can go on like this.”

Laura shook her head sadly.

“I half-hoped that he would meet someone and forget about me.”

“Is that what you want?” asked Laura.

“No. But I tell myself it would make it easier to go on without him if I knew he was happy and had moved on.”

“He’s not going to,” said Laura. “He and I go to concerts and exhibitions from time to time when he’s staying over. He gets offers, and he turns them all down.”

Lewis ran his hand through his hair, it was sticking up at all angles and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His phone vibrated and he took it out and peered at it wearily. Then he sighed and said, “I’d better head back to the station. Innocent’s been looking for me.”  
He bent over James one last time and kissed his forehead and his hand. Laura averted her eyes, feeling as if she were an intruding on a most intimate moment.

“Rest well, my bonnie lad.”

And then he was gone.

When Laura returned to James’s ward in the morning, he was already awake and a rejected breakfast of thin porridge and tea was lying on a tray in front of him, congealing into an unappetising paste.

“Was he here, or did I dream it?” he asked.

“He was here,” she replied.

He hesitated and tried to form a sentence but failed and poked forlornly at his bowl with his spoon.

Laura couldn’t bear it anymore.

“He sat with you for hours, talking to you. He loves you.”

James’s breath hitched and he whispered quietly, “I know.”


	10. Chapter 10

Lewis made it back to the station on automatic pilot. He parked his car, climbed the stairs to his office and wearily seated himself at his desk without paying any attention to the people in the corridor, the thinning carpet tiles underfoot or the overpowering heat in his office thanks to a south-facing window that turned the room into a suntrap in summer. He’d barely logged on to the computer when Jean Innocent had her head around the door again.

“Lewis, explain.”

She must have read something in his face because she entered the room and closed the door behind her.

“It was me old partner. He prevented a murder from taking place and took a bullet to his liver for his troubles.”

“Which old partner, please?”

“James Hathaway.”

“I don’t recall seeing that name in any reports before.”

Lewis stared at her blankly for a moment. 

“I suppose he wouldn’t be in the files. At least, not any here in Thames Valley.”

Her eyes widened in thought for a second or two.

“Would this be the nameless partner in the file from the Time case from before my arrival here?”

Lewis nodded.

“Please don’t tell me that he was deliberately interfering with the timeline,” she said.

“Alright then,” said Lewis, “I won’t.”

Innocent stared at the invisible heavens and counted to three before continuing. 

“I mean it, Lewis. The last thing I want is the bloody Ministry poking around in my police station.”

Lewis shrugged. 

“I mean, they were completely useless the last time they were here.”

Innocent scowled at him. 

“That wasn’t the point I was making, although I suspect that you know that. Are you trying to be obnoxious?”

Lewis looked a little contrite. 

“Sorry, ma’am. It’s just, he saved a young girl from a pointless death - a death that would have served no purpose to anyone, not even the murderer ‘cos we nicked him, in both timelines. The only thing that death would have done is leave an autistic boy friendless in the world. Hathaway did a good thing and if the Ministry want to make a thing of it, then, well, they’ll have to go through me.”

Lewis paused and then smiled. 

“They’ll probably have to go through him too, seeing as he is rapidly becoming an authority in Criminal Law,” he finished before visibly deflating and slumping back in his seat.

“He still changed time,” Innocent pointed out.

Lewis shrugged. “It’s not as if the girl is Attila the Hun in the making, or what’s the other one with the elephants and the Alps?”

“Um. Hannibal?” offered Innocent.

“Him, yeah. Look, all the world got out of this is an artist who’s currently selling postcards of a crocodile haunting the Cherwell to tourists and telling nonsense tales of Tolkien playing the banjo. The tourist office will continue to be a little miffed, but ach,” he groaned. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but time’s already changed, so the Ministry will have its hands full trying to explain how it’s okay for Hathaway’s life to be upended, but it’s not okay for an art student to not die.”

“What happened to Hathaway?” asked Innocent. “My predecessor didn’t go into details.”

Lewis seemed to hesitate for a moment before he said, “He was married, ma’am, and because of this time thing; well, he’ll probably never…” he found himself unable to complete the sentence and shook his head instead.

Innocent winced in sympathy.

“How horrible.”

Lewis nodded and swallowed.

“Anyway, ma’am, with regard to the case, I’ve told them to take one Reg Chapman into protective custody. He was Stringer’s other victim and before you ask, not Attila the Hun either. Just a maintenance man at the Bodleian. He’s all wrapped up in this too, and I’m fairly sure he’ll spill the beans once he finds out that Stringer’s trying to kill him.”

Innocent pressed her fingers delicately to her temples and tried to visualise a calm ocean.

“Is your Hathaway going to do this again?” she asked archly.

“Couldn’t say, ma’am. Hasn’t happened yet.”

She gave him a malevolent glare. 

“Right, as soon as you have the paperwork done on this case, you’re going to take a couple of weeks to review all the cases you ever did with Hathaway and present me with a list at the end of cases he might feel moved to interfere with. And Lewis, that is not to be taken as a suggestion that can be ignored.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He wondered briefly whether he should mention James visiting Will and Feardorcha and causing their exit from The Garden, and then he decided that Innocent had been very specific about cases that Hathaway might interfere with. She had said nothing about cases that James had already rendered null and void.

By the time Lewis made it home he was ragged and running on fumes. There was no avoiding Val and once she had taken one look at him she had insisted that he sit down right away and eat the dinner she had saved for him. Instead he poured himself three fingers of whiskey.

“Pet, thank you, but I’m not hungry. Lost my appetite I think.”

“You can’t keep this up, not at your age,” she pointed out firmly. “Not at any age I should think. You haven’t had a proper night’s sleep nor a proper meal in three days. I can’t remember when I’ve last seen you like this. You look awful. What’s happened?”

Lewis rubbed the back of his neck wearily.

“Me old bagman got shot saving a student the day before yesterday. He nearly - it was touch and go for a while there.”

Val looked at him horrified.

“Oh my God, that’s awful! What if it had been you instead? Poor Daniels.”

“It wasn’t Daniels it was Hathaway.”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“Who’s Hathaway? Is he new?”

Lewis shook his head thinking fast.

“He’s left the police force, he was my sergeant years ago.”

He could see Valerie was processing the new information carefully. 

“I though Ali McLennan was your sergeant before.”

“Aye, she was.”

Lewis listened to the clock on the wall ticking inexorably in the silence. Then he exhaled, and resigned himself to admitting uncomfortable truths.

“He was my sergeant in the future.”

“The Time case that they never resolved,” Val murmured.

“Worked that out, did you?” Lewis knew she was too smart for him.

“I can still remember you telling me that there was one, so that means it never got reset, right? I wouldn’t remember it ever happened if it had been reset.”

Lewis nodded.

“So,” Val’s brow was still furrowed, “if he was your bagman in the future, but left the police years ago in this timeline, then how did he get mixed up in a shooting three days ago?”

“Because he remembers the future like me. He knew that the girl was going to be murdered so he tried to save her and nearly got killed instead, stupid sod.” 

Lewis threw back the remainder of his glass and poured himself another whiskey.

“I don’t understand,” said Val. “Did you two not get along?”

“In the future?”

Val nodded.

“He was my best friend.”

Val was silent for a while.

“Why don’t you ever see him then? Why does he never come round here, if he’s your friend?”

Robbie tried to find words, but sat shaking his head sadly.

“Robbie, is it because of me? Did he and I not get along or something?”

He looked at her, eyes full of sadness. Her eyes grew wide.

“Oh God. He’s never met me, has he?”

Lewis shook his head. Tears started to form in Val’s eyes.

“Because I’m dead in that future, aren’t I?”

Lewis reached for her and pulled her into a hug.

“I’m sorry, pet. I never told you because, well at first it just seemed cruel. And then when the spell couldn’t be reset, there didn’t seem to be any point. Didn’t intend for you to ever find out.”

“How? How did it happen? How did I die?”

“Oh Val, don’t,” he said.

“I want to know, Robbie,” she said, voice shaking slightly.

“Do you remember that accident in London a few years ago. Man crashed in front of you?”

Val nodded.

“Oh God! That?”

Robbie nodded.

She stood in his embrace for some time. Lewis could feel her heart beating against his ribcage and his heart broke again for her, for James and for himself. Eventually she pulled away and wiped her eyes with her palms.

“Right. Well, why don’t you bring him here while he’s recuperating? He shouldn’t be alone and there’s no need for him to stay away now that I know,” she said.

“You’re the kindest woman in the world, but there’s no need, pet. He’ll be with Laura,” said Lewis hurriedly.

“Who’s Laura?” she asked.

“Dr Laura Hobson. Pathologist. She’s always been a good friend of ours.”

“Does she come from the future too like you and James?” Val asked.

Lewis shook his head. 

“No. I mean, she knows about it now, James told her when they became friends again in this timeline,” he explained.

“Are they together?” she asked.

Lewis shook his head.

“No, just friends.”

“Oh, did you and Laura - ?” Val was unable to finish her question.

“No, just friends too.”

“Well, they should come over for Sunday dinner as soon as James is well enough. You deserve to be with your friends too you know. I can’t understand why you kept us apart. There was no need.”

Lewis nodded wordlessly, unable to summon the strength to deal with any of the secrets that still remained unrevealed, but unwilling to argue about it. He could tell that Val was still thinking about it intensely because she kept giving him long puzzled looks as he climbed into bed and let himself sink back into the pillows. It was only a matter of time before she worked out that he was still keeping things from her.

Over breakfast Val tackled him again.

“When did you last see your friend? I mean, apart from in the hospital?”

Robbie felt his stomach curl and he pushed his plate of toast away.

“Must be five years ago. When he left the police,” he answered.

“Did you two fight?”

Lewis stared at his plate mutely. 

“I’m just trying to understand why you don’t talk to your best friend any more. You’ve been closed off and sad for a long time and I never understood why until now, and if you fought about something isn’t it about time you made up with him?”

He looked at her helplessly.

“It’s not like that, pet. It’s just better if we stay away from each other.”

Val frowned and crossed the room to retrieve a well-thumbed notebook from a drawer in the kitchen cabinet.

“That’s not right. When you first told me you had been hit by a Time Reset spell, I started to do some research of my own.”

“What? Why would you do that?” said Robbie.

“Why wouldn’t I do that? Time Reset spells are rare and illegal. You really think I would sit here and do nothing when my husband told me he’d been affected by one? Of course I tried to find out everything I could about it.”

Robbie shrugged his resignation. Val thumbed through her notes, all carefully written out by hand.

“Anyway, Oxford’s full of books, so there were plenty of places to look. Don’t remember ever seeing anything about rules for people who are stuck in the past, except to not deliberately change the future. Except there’s a school of thought that in those cases the future’s already been changed. So, you know. Nothing about staying apart. See, look.”

She pushed the notepad in front of him and paged through to a page with the neatly written heading ‘If the Time Reset spell is not reversed’.

Robbie sighed and paged through the notes. Val picked up the pad again and flicked through it to the heading ‘Loci and Foci’. Her brow furrowed as she read through it.

“You said you went to bed one night and you woke up here, back in the past.” she said.

“That’s right,” said Robbie.

“So the spellcaster must have been outside to catch you as the locus.”

Robbie raised his eyebrows.

“I suppose. Yes.”

“Why would he do that? I mean, why would he want you to know that he’d changed the past? Wouldn’t it have been safer to do it without letting anyone know?”

Robbie considered it for a moment.

“Safer, perhaps. But he was a self-pitying and self-aggrandising little man. He would probably want to be praised for fixing -” Lewis broke off in disgust.

“So you caught the man who, who...” Val couldn’t finish her sentence either.

“James found him.”

The conversation died again and Lewis felt Val stiffening next to him.

“The spellcaster must have been outside your home to make you a focal point. You said you were in bed when it happened. And James remembers the future too.”

Lewis froze as he realised where she was going.

“So James was in your bed when the spell was cast.” 

Her voice was quiet and still.

“Yes,” Lewis saw no point in denying it.

“You were having an affair with your sergeant?” 

“What? No! This was years after that. I was retired. We were married.” Then he added, “He was my husband.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Val. She tried to process her thoughts and emotions while Lewis stared wretchedly at his plate unable to choose what to say.

“Did you love him?” she asked eventually.

“Yes,” he answered, surprised at the question.

“And were you happy?”

Lewis smiled sadly and to his horror found his eyes filling. He nodded, unable to speak.

“I don’t understand, Robbie. Why did he leave you?”

Lewis could feel himself surrendering. All his carefully maintained buttresses disintegrated in an instant.

“Once we realised we were stuck here in the past he said that either all of us suffered or only two of us did. He wanted to spare you and the kids that, and I agreed.”

Val covered her mouth as the horror of the situation hit her.

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Robbie.”

Robbie took her hand and kissed it.

“I’m sorry too, lass. This has been a lot for you to take in, and I never wanted you to be bothered by any of it.”

Her hand gripped his tighter.

“But that’s why it’s best if James and I stay apart and never see each other again. Please pet, just leave it at that.”


	11. Chapter 11

Oxford emptied somewhat in December as undergraduates headed home for the festive season and the city was returned to its more long-term inhabitants. In the last few days before Christmas the weather turned freezing and Hathaway found that the cold made the scar tissue on his abdomen ache whenever he stretched or coughed.

In spite of the season’s mass exodus, Laura had discovered a photography exhibition and when James had turned up at her house for the Christmas break she coaxed him into an evening suit and knotted a silk scarf around his neck just before they left the house. He laid his head against hers in the back seat of the taxi on the way and sincerely thanked God for the gift of one true friend.

As was their wont, they had no interest in being noticed; however they inevitably drew glances wherever they went. James found he was leaning on Laura more than he had intended to as they walked around the exhibition, but she merely smiled at him when he tried to apologise and shifted her arm around his waist so that she gave him more support without showing it. She giggled at one point and told him not to let go.

“I’m enjoying looking like the handsomest man in the room is my adoring boyfriend,” she said.

James rolled his eyes and grinned along with her.

“Do you mind if we sit down for a bit if I promise to stare longingly at you?” he said.

“Of course, James. You holding up okay?”

He nodded as they found a bench and sank down on it.

“What did Dr McKenzie say yesterday?”

Hathaway shrugged.

“You know the good doctor. What he lacks in bedside manner he more than makes up for in basic incivility.” 

Laura nodded.

“James Hathaway, don’t think I can’t spot your trying to avoid the question. I know you had a checkup.”

James sighed.

“The liver is about as good as they hoped for, which means I will live, in case we were wondering, but there is scarring that hasn’t healed yet.”

Laura nodded again.

“That’s to be expected. Perhaps you’ll think twice about tackling the next gun-toting lunatic head-on.” 

Her tone softened the words and she stroked his cheek gently.

“I’ll make you a hot-water bottle to take to bed tonight. The cold will be making it feel worse.”

“Thank you, Dr Hobson, where would I be without you?”

“So apart from that,” she said, “happy birthday.”

He laughed and accepted her kiss with a sweet smile.

“I was hoping you’d forget,” he said.

“I never forget,” she replied with her customary jaunty grin, “Champagne or something lighter?”

“Champagne sounds good,” he said, and she rose and headed over to the bar to get their drinks. He shifted uneasily on the bench, the injuries from his summertime adventure had left him feeling old before his time and had given him a sudden and unwelcome taste of his own fragility. Laura returned bearing generous glasses of something with bubbles.

“To another successful revolution around the sun.”

“Thanks, Laura.” 

She sat down again next to him and leaned up against his side.

“This okay?”

He nodded, “Mmhmm.”

“Penny for your thoughts,” she said, and received a side-eyed glare for her troubles.

“I was just remembering. My last birthday, from before.”

“You mean before you ended up here in the past?”

He nodded.

“Big bash?”

James shook his head.

“No, I was working all day, but Robbie made me Cottage Pie and he’d bought some panforte and wine from the marketplace for after because he said his culinary skills had daily limits.”

“I’m just impressed he could cook anything,” mused Laura. “I wouldn’t have thought Lewis was the domestic goddess type.”

“He’s really not. But he’d been learning ever since we moved in together, mastered a few of the basics. You made him promise never to do Duck a l’Orange again though.”

“I shudder to think. So what did the birthday part of your birthday entail?”

James grinned at her.

“Eating.”

Laura rolled her eyes.

“Just normal stuff; we talked about cases we were on, and afterwards I read to him and we discussed the text as things that caught his interest came up. We often do that - did that in the evenings.”

“Sounds nice,” said Laura.

“It was the best time of my life,” James replied quietly. “He was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

They both lapsed into silence and Laura rubbed his back and said, “Okay, I think it’s time we got you home and into bed.”

He rose with her, took her arm, and together they crossed the room and exited into the night.

Behind them Val Lewis stared after them in stunned surprise. 

Val had honored Robbie’s request that she would not try to contact Dr Hobson and James Hathaway; but it had not occurred to her that she would bump into them like this. Although she realised that there had always been the chance that their paths might cross, Oxford wasn’t the biggest of cities after all; she’d never assumed it would matter as she had no idea of what either of them looked like. Had the doctor not called James Hathaway by name they would have passed each other in the gallery, unknowing and unwitting.

She’d not been prepared for how young he had been, still dewy-faced with youth, and - this was stupid - how male he was. This was the man that Robbie had been married to, with his cultured accent and apparently gentle nature if his manner towards the doctor was anything to go by. She didn’t know what she had expected, but it certainly hadn’t been this. The image of Robbie, her cricket-and-a-pint loving Robbie, sitting listening to this man reading him books and discussing them with him baffled her. How had he changed to that degree? Had it been all those years with Morse that had sparked a slow chain reaction in Robbie, one that even she had not been able to track as he’d transformed slowly into a man who had fallen for a boy who was everything he was not?

Val went home in silence, unable to concentrate on her girlfriends’ chatter about the photographs at the exhibition, their children and the preparations for the upcoming Christmas celebrations. She was beginning to feel detached from Robbie, as though he was becoming a person she barely recognised, even though simultaneously she realised that he was very much the man she had married: loyal, kind and good. But there had been a certain inexorable drift, one she had excused as simply the product of middle age and the children growing up and leaving home. One did not, after all, expect to be the same person at fifty as one was at twenty. The carefree romance of their youth had metamorphosed into the domesticity of rearing children and paying the bills with all its incumbent worries, responsibilities and distractions. It was inevitable that they both would change.

Once upon a time Val’s major peeve had been that Robbie had allowed Morse to monopolise his time to the point of his presence becoming a bone of contention in their lives. Robbie had defended it at the time by pointing out that to a degree his career was dependent on the old man. Then of course, there had also been the obvious fondness that her husband had developed for the crotchety Inspector, making Robbie even more compliant with his more outrageous requests and demands. But Val was beginning to realise that her husband may have been more willing than she had previously acknowledged. Somewhere under Morse’s tutelage, Robbie’s own relationship with his job had undergone a change from something that gave him a steady paycheck to something that he thrived on. Morse had brought out Robbie’s rebellious side and nurtured his taste for Wagner, on-the-job-drinking and puzzle-solving.

Now, in addition to the existing equation that was Robbie, Val had to figure in a certain regard for bookishness, an apparent new-found dedication to home cooking and and an ability to fall in love with a young man barely older than his own children.

It was one thing to intellectually believe that she would not expect or want Robbie to mourn her for the rest of his life. It was quite another thing to see the man her husband had married, or would have married; and try to reconcile that to the person she had always known. It left her uncomfortable. She also couldn’t help feeling sorry for the young man she’d watched limping slightly as he left the exhibition. He’d seemed so resigned. She was not insensitive to the fact that this journey into the past had wrecked his life and had now left him physically maimed and emotionally scarred.

When she got home, Robbie was reading something on the sofa and he smiled at her and asked, “Have a good evening, pet?” when she came in. He had a glass of whiskey on the table and Val noted a slight sadness in his eyes, confirming to her that he had probably not forgotten that it was James Hathaway’s birthday. His book was placed face-down on the table and she read the title ‘Call of the Camino: Myths, Legends and Pilgrim Stories on the Way to Santiago de Compostela’. She was somewhat dumbfounded by his choice of reading material, he’d never shown any particular interest in religion or Spain. There was no getting away from the increasing evidence that she and her husband had become strangers in some ways. How much of it had happened in the normal course of their married life and how much of that was a result of the Time spell was hard to judge. His loyalty to her could not be questioned, but circumstances had split his love between two people and the more she looked for signs of it, the more she saw.

While she bathed and readied herself for bed an ugly thought crossed her mind. She wondered, if she died or divorced Robbie now, how long it would take him to return to James. Would it be days? Hours?

However, when she got into bed her inner thoughts turned to shame when Robbie turned his guileless blue eyes on her and kissed her good night.

“Sweet dreams, pet.”


	12. Chapter 12

James was sitting cross-legged on the sofa under the twinkling lights that adorned Laura’s sitting room with a bottle of port nearby and his guitar across his lap.

“This one has nothing to do with Christmas at all, but it always makes me think of this time of the year,” he announced.

He launched into a guitar concerto while Laura regarded him through half-closed eyes from the other end of the seat, her head thrown back against cushions. This had become their Christmas ritual each year: music, port and occasional songs from Hathaway if the mood took him after lunch. 

Laura stretched lazily and tucked her toes under James’s legs for warmth and closed her eyes. James smiled indulgently and continued to strum and pluck as the sky darkened outside.

He transitioned into another piece, this one quieter and Laura opened her eyes again.

“I may never move again,” she said.

“Fair enough,” said James. He winced visibly as he tried to wriggle into a more comfortable position. He saw Laura notice it, but she did nothing beyond giving him a smile of sympathy.

“It will feel better when the weather gets warmer,” she said.

“Well, that’s only six months away,” he murmured. 

They fell silent again for a while apart from James’s long fingers plucking out tunes.

“I’ve been meaning to say that I wanted to thank you,” he looked over at her, suddenly all serious and a little abashed. “I’ve been so lucky, having a friend like you. You saved me.” 

Laura tried to interrupt here, but he continued.

“M’not trying to be melodramatic. You were there on the best day of my life, and you were there on the worst day of my life. I can’t imagine what any of it would be like without you.”

He was interrupted by a sniff and saw that Laura’s eyes were shimmering with unshed tears.

“And I like my life with you in it too,” she said, and leaned over to him and kissed him on the cheek. 

In the morning there was a text message on his phone:

ATTEND THAMES VALLEY CID MONDAY 10AM MINISTRY UPDATE

James frowned at it and handed his phone to Laura over the breakfast table. She raised her eyebrows.

“I’m coming with you.”

It was a strange sensation, entering the CID building again, a place once familiar and now filled with exactly the people who had been there when he’d been a sergeant. Nothing prepared him for coming face-to-face with Jean Innocent. James could not prevent a smile from crossing his face.

Chief Superintendent Innocent’s eyes narrowed when she came face to face to James Hathway.

“I take it that we once knew each other?” she said.

“Yeah,” James registered some surprise. “How did you … ?”

“People in this building rarely smile happily at the sight of my coming to greet them. They smile politely, not happily.” She nodded at Laura, “Doctor Hobson. Mr Hathaway, I haven’t seen your file, but I imagine you must have been a copper once and one of mine too.”

James acknowledged this with a bow of his head.

“Then you know your way to Interview Room 3, but I’ll take you there anyway.” She was already clipping her way down the hall, neatly skirting a Christmas tree. James could not contain a grin. She had always been like a storm front down the corridors, not a force in the universe could stand against her. Nostalgia coursed through him unexpectedly, only slightly curbed when he saw Hooper slouching against a wall in one of the offices. Memories of Maddox and Gurdip and Peterson seemed as clear as the sounds and smells around him. For an instant he missed the days of being a part of it all and then he saddened remembering that all this meant very little without Robbie. His head lowered and he refused to look anywhere other than where his feet were about to step.

Innocent opened the door to the Observation room.

“Right, here we are.”

James entered and peered into the room adjacent. His eyes widened at the sight of an irritable-looking man sitting at the table.

“Monkford.”

James did not know he was moving towards the man until he was held back by hands that grabbed his arms.

“Mr Hathaway, stay where you are.”

James stilled and stared at Monkford with cold hatred.

“Is that him?” said Laura.

James nodded.

“The Ministry picked him up when he re-entered the UK,” said Innocent. “We’re just waiting for Lewis.”

“And then?”

“I believe they intend to reverse the spell.”

“Oh God, did someone even tell Lewis what was going to happen?”

Innocent looked at him quizzically. 

“What do you mean?”

“Lewis has a wife,” said James. “Once that spell is reversed, she dies. I see they didn’t tell you that part.”

Innocent looked horrified.

“We believe quick and without preamble is for the best, Mr Hathaway,” said Smith stalking into the Observation room.

“I know what it’s like to lose a spouse, Mr Smith, and I can assure you that quick and without preamble doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference.”

Smith nodded at him as a perfunctory greeting.

“Yes, Hathaway, and we are all truly am sorry for what happened to you. But that is precisely why I would have thought you would be glad that this moment had finally come.”

James fell silent, unable to continue the conversation without his voice betraying him. Laura put her hand into his and they stood together in silence.

“ _Has_ Lewis been informed about what’s going on?” Innocent was demanding answers.

“He was told that the Ministry have an important update on Monkford, so he’s probably worked it out. In any case, he got five extra years with his wife. That’s more than most people get. At the end of the day it makes no difference. Time-spells are illegal and where we find them, we reverse them. There is no debate to be had here.”

Innocent was pressing her hand to her forehead, an action James had seen her use many times before when she was stressed and losing her patience.

“You’ve got jurisdiction over this case, Smith, but that’s the only reason why I’m not kicking you out,” she said. Then she looked at James. “What happens to you, Mr Hathaway, when this spell reverses?”

James hesitated.

“From your perspective, in a few minutes you’ll have an additional sergeant working for DI Lewis. From my perspective, I’ll wake up sixteen years into the future, and my - I will have my…”

“He’ll have his husband back,” Lewis was standing in the doorway looking solemn but not unhappy, “hello, James.”

Innocent was looking between Lewis and Smith trying to glean the details from the glances and silences. Her eyes widened in slight surprise when Robbie crossed the room to stand in front of James and they smiled at each other slightly but in a way that was unmistakably intimate.

“Do either of you want to have a word with Monkford before hand?” said Smith.

Both men turned as one to look at the hunched figure in the Interview room. Hathaway shuddered and Lewis shook his head after staring at him for a few seconds.

“Not worth our time, I reckon,” said Lewis.

“I’ve nothing to say to him,” said Hathaway.

“Wait,” he said feeling as if he was flailing in midair unable to keep up. He turned to Laura and folding her in his arms whispered, “I’ll see you in the future, okay?”

Her eyes shone as she stood on her tiptoes to reach his cheek and kissed him gently.

“I’ll be waiting for you, James. You too, Lewis, and I’m told you cook, so you can make us all lunch when I get there.”

Robbie gave her a grin and a nod.

“Will do, lass.”

She turned back to James and said sadly, “I’m going to forget all this, you know.”

“I’ll remind you,” he said, “I promise.”

“Are you ready then?” said Smith “we may as well get this done.”

James nodded and studied Robbie’s eyes carefully trying to read all the emotions there. 

“You okay with doing this, Robbie?”

Lewis was silent for a moment, then he blinked and nodded. Together they stepped into the room where the Ministry personnel awaited them.


	13. Chapter 13

James felt as though he blinked awake only seconds later. He could feel warmth lying the length of his entire body for the first time in years. He had almost forgotten that feeling of support and comfort against his skin, the sensation of weight against his side. Beside him Lewis’s breathing changed as he too woke and stretched beside him. James allowed himself a few seconds of lying there pretending to himself that the past five years had not happened before opening his eyes. His hand automatically felt his side and he flinched in surprise when he felt smooth skin only.

“It’s gone,” he said.

Lewis stirred next to him.

“What’s that, lad?”

“The bullet wound. It’s gone.”

Instantly Lewis’s blue eyes opened and he too put his hand on James’s abdomen. They stared into each other’s eyes for long minutes and then James exhaled slowly and put his forehead against Robbie’s. His mind was racing as he tried to assess what this new configuration meant for them until Lewis spoke, his voice rumbling in his chest and vibrating against James’s face.

“I can hear you thinking, you know.”

James smiled and his breath huffed against Robbie’s neck.

“It’s just, we’ve been through a lot. You’ve been through a lot,” said James.

“And we haven’t been together for years.”

Lewis could hear James’s breath catch in his throat at those words. Instantly Hathaway’s body stilled like prey expecting the predator’s killing blow.

“No, we haven’t. How are you feeling, Robbie? Are you okay? About... V- Val?”

Lewis sighed quietly and pulled himself upright in the bed and switched on the bedside lamp. James mirrored him, instantly wary and poised to flee. Lewis regarded him solemnly and reached out to push the blonde fringe back from James’s brow.

“Because I’ve lost her again? Is that what you’re thinking?”

James nodded.

“Not sure how to put this, but for the last five years I’ve been mourning you. To make it worse, you weren’t really gone. The thought of you out there alone nearly broke my heart. There wasn’t a day I didn’t want to come to you.”

James was staring at his hands, hardly breathing.

“It’s not that I wasn’t grateful to see Val again. She was my wife for twenty years after all, and my best friend for all that time. But I’d changed. I mean, people always do over time. But who I am today is not the person I was back when Val and I were married. She noticed pretty quickly.”

“Did she guess what had happened?”

“I told her. Not everything, not at first, but eventually it all came out. Even about you in the end.”

“Wow. What was that like?”

“Less dramatic than you’d think. By the time I told her, it would have been obvious to anyone a darn sight less observant than Val that something was off with me.”

“I’m sorry,” said James.

“Ach, don’t be. I only meant to make the point that I’m not back where I was when we first met. I’m still your husband, and I know the past five years are going to have their effect on us, but I’m thinking that we can get past it.”

“Me too,” whispered James. “I missed you every day too.”

They lay together for a while, just breathing and cataloguing the feelings and sounds of being next to each other again. James inched his hand towards Robbie and finally touched his wrist and slipped his fingers between Robbie’s own. The silence in their room was suddenly shattered by an alarm on James’s phone ringing.

Lewis groaned.

“What on earth did you set your alarm for? It’s Christmas Day.”

“No idea. I set that five years ago.”

“That’s a sentence that shouldn’t make any sense,” Lewis remarked.

“It must be for the roast. For lunch, I mean. That’s all I can think of.”

“Bit early for it, isn’t it? Unless you’re doing an elephant this year.”

“I’m reasonably sure it’s not an elephant.”

“Will it matter if we eat at four instead of midday?”

“Not to me,” whispered James snuggling back into the pillows.

They resumed touching each other slowly and carefully until they were roused again by a persistent knock at the door.

“What on earth is going on? Is it visiting day at the zoo or summat,” Lewis grumbled. 

James shrugged and stumbled out of bed to the door while yanking a pullover over his head and opened up to a slightly exasperated Laura.

“Did you oversleep or something?” she said, pushing past him with her arms laden with bags and a large trifle that she dumped into his arms.

James’s face was immediately covered in a happy smile and once he had deposited the trifle onto the kitchen table he flung his arms around Laura and kissed her cheek, whirling her around in his arms.

“Merry Christmas to you too,” said Laura, looking just a little bemused.

Robbie shuffled in with his hair sticking up in all directions.

“I thought you two didn’t let each other get drunk at office parties any more,” Laura remarked just as James sang out to Robbie, “I’ve found out why I set the alarm.”

“We’re not drunk,” said James. Robbie shook his head in confirmation.

Laura looked around at the complete lack of cooking in the kitchen.

“Did you forget you invited me for lunch? Actually, let me rephrase that: how on earth did you forget you invited me lunch? You rang me only yesterday to make sure the time was still okay.”

James opened the fridge door and was relieved to see it laden with the evident results of hours of Christmas lunch preparations. 

Robbie sighed.

“Laura, lass, you’re going to find this hard to believe, but James and me, well, we got hit by a Time Reset spell. We’ve been stuck in the past for the last five years.”

To his surprise Laura did not scoff at them or roll her eyes.

“2007?”

“Um, yes, among others.”

“Ah, well then, this is starting to make more sense.” Laura opened one of her bags and pulled out a leather-bound book and handed it over to James. James opened it and grunted in surprise. 

“It’s my thesis,” he said, handing it over to Robbie.

“Yes,” said Laura. “I was wondering how you’d managed to get an MSc in Law in between solving crimes with Lewis.”

“How did you get hold of this?” asked James. “I thought it would be gone forever.”

“Well, that’s just the thing,” said Laura. “I was approached by a man yesterday as I was leaving work who gave me this and said it was against the rules, but should be seen as a gesture of apology. I said I had no idea what he was talking about, and he said I should ask the author, which is apparently you.”

“I never joined the police in the past we’ve just been in,” said James pulling the carefully wrapped glazed ham and a goose out of the fridge before sighing and shaking his head apologetically. “At this rate we’re only going to be eating Christmas lunch tomorrow.”

“Bung it in the microwave, man,” said Lewis, “at least to start it off” he added seeing the look of indignant horror on James’s face.

“Anyway, I think the reason this was given to you is probably because just before they reversed the spell I promised I would help you remember the years that were going to be erased. You were my best friend through it all,” James added solemnly to Laura, “I don’t think I would have survived without you.”

Lewis shuffled uncomfortably at this.

“Why were you involved in a Time spell anyway?” asked Laura.

James put a hand on Robbie’s shoulder and said, “It was Monkford, the man who killed Mrs Lewis. He sent himself back in time to change that and brought us along for the ride.”

Laura’s eyes widened as the full consequences of that struck her.

“Oh, God. I’m sorry boys, that - must have been rough.”

It was clear from the expressions of both men that neither particularly wanted to talk about it; at least, not yet.

“Would it be easier if we do this at another time?” she asked.

“No,” said James, “so long as you are prepared to put up with slightly microwaved lunch, it would be easier if you would stay.”

“Slightly microwaved lunch it is then,” she said smiling, pulling bottles of wine out of one of her bags. “We can drink in the meantime.” 

“I knew I loved you for a reason,” said James.

Lewis kept thumbing through the book as James and Laura poked about with the final pre-cooking preparations on the goose. During a lull in the conversation James crooked an eyebrow at him.

“It’s interesting,” said Lewis. “Do you think you’ll want to finish? Get the doctorate, I mean?”

James shrugged.

“Don’t know. Not unless they would let me do it part-time.”

“Stay a copper then?”

James shook his head.

“No, I think I’m done.”

“Bit young for retiring, though, aren’t you?” Laura interjected.

“That’s not what it’s about. I’ll get something I can do from home. Proofreading, something like that.”

Laura still looked a little puzzled.

James gave her a half-smile. 

“It’s because I’ve been married for six years and I’ve spent the last five years separated from Robbie. I don’t think I’m going to be any use at work if I have to be away from him every day.”

Both Laura and Robbie were looking at him now.

“Sorry, Laura, this may seem like more detail than you want to hear. I’m used to telling you everything these days.” He hung his head and sighed. She reached out and took his hand.

“I’m glad you still think of me as your friend then,” she said.

He smiled at her gratefully and looked at Robbie.

Robbie waved his hand while he poured coffee for himself. “Up to you, James. I’ll support whatever you choose. Just don’t limit your options too quickly, pet. You may feel differently in a month.”

“I’m not going to,” said James feeling a little like a contrary child looking for a fight. Then he fumbled for his box of cigarettes and headed for the door.

“Let him go,” said Robbie, “he just needs to steady himself. This whole thing was a lot harder on him. I mean, it was hard for both of us, but he had to watch me go back to my family while he was left alone. He must have felt completely abandoned.”

“And was he?”

“No,” said Robbie. “You were there for him, thank God.”

Laura sipped her glass of wine looking thoughtful.

“I’m not saying I handled it as well as I might have, - trust me, you certainly read me the Riot Act about it - but it was James who insisted that I go back to Val and the kids when we learned we were stuck there,” he paused and peered sadly into space. “It felt like the worst day of my life all over again. This time it was my husband instead of my wife. But, same thing, you know?”

Laura nodded.

“That day, it was the first time I’d ever seen him cry, silently, like he wasn’t allowed to grieve. And instead of comforting him, I walked away. And I didn’t see him again until years later, and eh, he was lying in a hospital bed then,” Lewis broke off, shaking his head.

The silence was interrupted by James coming back from his nicotine break. Robbie held out his arms to him and James went to him immediately and buried his head in Robbie’s shoulder. Then he tilted James’s head up and said, “We’re going to be alright again, love, I promise.” The two of them stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment before James nodded and dropped a quick kiss to Robbie’s lips.

“Don’t mind me,” said Laura cheekily, “I always enjoy a free floor show.”

She got a grin from James and an eye roll from Lewis.

The day turned into a marathon of eating and lounging about on the couch interspersed with James playing them a motley selection of pieces on the guitar.

“You and I always did this at Christmas,” he said looking at Laura. Laura beamed merrily at this while Robbie quietly swallowed his jealousy. His regrets at having missed some of the good moments in James’s life were tempered by the knowledge that at least two people who were dear to him had found some consolation and joy in each other’s company.

“I’ll bring my clarinet next year,” said Laura, “and you can bang the cymbals, Lewis,” she added with a wink.

“Oh aye, thank you very much,” said Robbie.

By the time all the food was eaten and the dishes had been stacked in a dishwasher loaded to capacity, Robbie insisted that Laura stay the night so that she could have one last night-cap with them before bed.

“I don’t know about a night-cap,” she said. “I think I was way over the point of no return some time ago.”

“Tea, then?” said James. “So long as you’re not planning on going home. You can’t, not after all that wine. We’ll make up the bed in the spare room.”

“Tea good, bed good,” she said.

James giggled and switched on the kettle before hugging Laura to him again, swaying back and forth with his eyes closed. Once again, Robbie was forced to contemplate what he’d missed out on in the last five years. As if James could hear his thoughts, Lewis found his husband’s eyes fixed on him. He found himself on the receiving end of a smile filled with such love and happiness that his own eyes filled with tears. For the first time all day Lewis found he could believe that they were going to be alright. It was just going to need a little time.

Once Laura had retired for the night, Lewis had to steer James out of the kitchen and into bed, the lad was wired from too much coffee and nicotine and nerves.

“You smell like an ashtray, love,” he said sniffing at James’s hair. “Shower for you.”

He got a side-glance from James, so he pushed him into the bathroom and started undressing him.

“I can undo my own buttons, you know,” said James.

“Mmhmm,” said Robbie, peeling the shirt off him and starting on the belt buckle. “I’ll wash your hair for you.”

He got a smile for that and made quick work of his own clothes and followed his husband into the cubicle.

As he squeezed shampoo into his palm and touched James’s head he was struck by how long it had been since he’d touched him. His hand started to shake as he massaged the soap into his scalp.

“Robbie?”

James turned around and took his hands in his own.

“You okay, Robbie?”

Lewis nodded and raised their joined hands to hold James’s head.

“I just suddenly realised how long it’s been since we last did something like this. I’m so sorry, lad. This has been so horribly unfair to you.”

“To both of us,” said James running his hands over Robbie’s. Wordlessly they finished washing each other and then pulled each other into bed. James curled himself around Robbie and traced his fingers over his face as if trying to re-learn his features.

“Is this real?” he whispered. “No, don’t answer that. It’s a stupid question.”

“It isn’t stupid,” said Robbie. “All I can tell you is, real or fake, I love you.”

James continued stroking his still-damp hair.

“The day we got married,” said James, “d’you remember how I nearly choked when you said your vows?”

Robbie smiled and nodded, “Aye.”

“It was the moment I realised that I had everything I’d ever imagined I could want, it was the happiest I’d ever been in all my life up until that point.”

“Sweet boy,” Robbie whispered, “that moment meant the world to me too.”

“It was at that moment I realised something that’s always been true, something I had always known, but it was at that moment that it struck home.” James continued, "You’re the most precious thing in my life. That’s why I don’t want to go back to work. I’ve already lost five years with you, and I don’t want to lose any more.”

“Okay, love, you know I’m going to support you no matter what. I just don’t want you to get bored or sick of being at home.”

“Not going to happen.”

Robbie kissed his hand and pressed it against his heart.

“I’ll be here even if you do, and I’ll love you through that too. An’ that’s about as sappy as I can get.”

James started to laugh, and it sounded like the most beautiful thing in the world to Robbie’s ears.


End file.
